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Mobile payment systems provider is facing a nice day as venture capitalists value the little business at some USD1,000 million.

The former governor of Delta State in Nigeria entered a not guilty plea in London yesterday to charges of laundering some USD35 million allegedly taken from state coffers. Chief James Onanefe Ibori has been remanded in custody in the UK while preparations for trial have been underway.

US company SurePass says that it has developed a two-factor authentication system that avoids problems with the "RSA Breached Token Devices" so as to "deliver secure two-factor authentication via free mobile apps, text and electronic card"

The USA's Internal Revenue Service and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have announced that a small subset of individuals with only signature authority required to file the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs) will receive a one-year extension beyond the previously notified filing date of 30 June, 2011.

Three people have been arrested, and cash, goods and items used in the commission of offences seized in Hong Kong as police investigate a rapid-fire ATM scam involving data written to mag stripe cards and used in just two ATMs over a two week period.

The Philippines Central Bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, says that is has seen continued growth in remittances from Filipino workers overseas as the effects of the global financial crisis are factored out - but in March, the rate of growth was slower than in February.

When a private investigator approached a "friend" who worked in a bank and asked for information relating to the accounts of a politician, the clerk was willing to help. She says she thought she was helping the police when "Ramesh" asked for the information. It's the first prosecution of its kind in Malaysia.

A former director of Australian company Streetwise has been jailed for 8 1/2 years by a Sydney court for making fraudulent representations in support of applications for loans to his companies and fraudulently obtaining investments.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has identified a website which it says is fraudulent and a fake of a real bank's online presence. Of itself, that's not especially rare. But this one is different: the name of the site is in Chinese characters and there aren't very many of them around.

When Malaysia's Securities Commission imposed conditions on the activities of SJ Asset Management an unrelated company, SJ Securities, began to get calls from worried clients.

The USA's Securities and Exchange Commission has unanimously voted to approve new rules to significantly curtail "pay to play" practices by investment advisers. Why not call it what it is - corruption?

The USA's Securities and Exchange Commission has issued civil proceedings against Spongetech Inc, and several officers and an affiliate company alleging a market abuse scheme involving fraudulent mistatement and pump and dump. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York has announced a parallel criminal action.

On Friday 15th April 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission was heavily criticised by the Office of the Inspector General. That day the SEC announced "fraud charges" against Goldman Sachs, sending markets reeling but diverting attention from the OIG report. Schapiro appeared before the House Subcommittee the following Monday, in part to rebut the OIG's findings. That the news agenda continued to be taken up with the Goldman's action and paid little or no attention to her appearance before the subcommittee's Appropriations Committee (applying for funding for the SEC) demonstrates the success of the diversionary tactic. Her full testimony is below (unedited)

New Zealand's Securities Commission is to issue civil proceedings against Nuplex Industries Limited and several present and former directors in the SC's first "continuous disclosure" case and papers are being filed at The High Court in Wellington this morning. The company is dual-listed in NZ and Australia.

The UK's Financial Services Authority has fined Credit Suisse, Getco Europe and Instanet Europe for failing to put in place measures to aid the FSA in identifying possible market abuse.