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With the superficial attitudes of commentators on all sides of the media divide pushing risk and compliance professionals in the direction of their fashion-driven topics, it's useful to remind readers that while they are focussed on the next big thing, past big things remain a threat. Pump and dump is an example of market manipulation and, of course, a predicate crime for money laundering or, even, funding future crime including, possible, terrorist activity. What is even more surprising is that the same names crop up repeatedly but they never go to jail.

A former financial planner from Melbourne, Australia, has been prosecuted by the regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)

Issued under its Regulations and Financial Stability area, the new MAS form is a part of the Regulations and Guidance and Licensing function in relation to the securities, futures and funds market segment.

It covers those applying to become a recognised exchange or market operator, including those in the FinTech sector.

It's long been an issue in the USA and it's spreading across the world as dozens of small towns in the UK can testify. Banks, which are not a public service, are closing (or not opening) branches in poor or small communities. The irony, some say, is that those are the very communities that most need physical banks. In the USA, several states are once more tackling the problem.

It's the old, old story: someone has what they think is a great idea then forces others to adopt it against their wishes, even when their wishes take into account their own security arrangements. This time, it's a bank and even they disclaim risks they force customers to accept. It's either a snafu in policy or a snafu in communications.

Welcome to Standard Chartered, Malaysia.

This is not about money laundering. It's about how the UK is de-EU-ing law and regulation ready for "exit day." The UK's draft statutory instrument called "The Money Laundering and Transfer of Funds (Information) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018" is an object lesson in technical documentation. It has no life of its own and can only be read alongside other UK law and Regulations. It is of extraordinary importance not because of what it does but because of what it demonstrates. This is an indication of the clerical complexity of withdrawing from the EU even when the principles, as they will in relation to the Money Laundering Directives, will remain as now.

It's one of those times where there is double take. Are you reading it right? A Court has said it will not approve an agreed settlement between a financial institution and a regulator? Oh, OK, it must be that the Court thought that the penalty was too light and he's sent the parties away to decide how much more should be paid, or perhaps penalties beyond money should be added?

No, that's not it. It's far more fascinating than that.

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Artificial Intelligence is the buzzword of the year, beating out even "blockchain" and "add oil." A company that claims to be at the front of the pack when it comes to AI is Google. But, as this case shows, it doesn't matter what your algorithms do if what they do isn't properly targeted and the correct action results. It also demonstrates why financial institutions should be very wary of relying on technology which is, at best immature and at worst experimental.

In the meantime, Google and Microsoft, let's bypass the intermediary and you can just send us the "($1,000,000.00) One Million United States Dollars" today. Thank you.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority released this statement at 17:30 HKG time (11:30 GMT) today.

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The fraud has interesting timing and holders of internet domains should be aware of a possible new threat to reputation. The threat does not, on the face of it, have any immediate cyber-security implications but there may be hidden dangers.

It all began when financial services regulation became trendy. In the good old days (which were in fact the bad old days in so many ways) language was used accurately. But some twit decided that precision in language in some way excluded hoi poloi. We are now some twenty years into a process by which imprecision has become the norm and therefore confusion and expense the inevitable result. One of the terms that first fell to this idiotic process is "firm."

Sydney-based authorised representative Eli Ekman, of Dover Heights, NSW, has been prohibited from providing any financial services in any capacity for five years, under the terms of a court-enforceable undertaking (EU), said Australian financial services regulator ASIC in a statement this week. His offence is unusual.

What're the odds? Statistically, and logically, there are some things that should not happen, especially when a series of conditions must be met. Think how hard it is to get a rollover of selecting the winner of six horse-races in a row, for example. How can it be, then, that there are so many in-debt young people who attended college but don't have their degrees or whatever? The answer lies in a series of mismanagement decisions over a period of years at all levels of government in the USA. And it could easily happen anywhere else, too.

A statement from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development says that a meeting of the heads of the leading multilateral development banks (MDBs) meeting at the 2018 Global Infrastructure Forum (GI Forum) today reaffirmed their commitment to work together to deliver inclusive, resilient, and sustainable technology-driven infrastructure. "

There's a lot of blah-blah-buzzword-blah and then comes a sentence that should pique the interest of all in the financial and aid sectors.

In 2011, Moody’s Investors Service Hong Kong Limited which along with many associated companies is generally known only as "Moody's," and which has forgone the sobriquet "ratings agency" in favour of the much more honest "ratings organisation", issued a document entitled "Red Flags for Emerging-Market Companies: A Focus on China." Ignoring, for the sake of simplicity, that the document referred to warning signs and not red flags in the true sense, it contained material that the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) decided was not apt. That started a battle which continues.