Tag Archives | financial crisis

Shelving the shells

From one corruption fighting organisation to another, hats off to Global Witness. Founder Charmian Gooch and her colleagues have been recognised for their stellar efforts to highlight the damage done by corrupt practices in the extractives sector. In her award winning TED talk, Gooch highlighted the role of ‘the facilitators’ – global banks and global […]

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New year’s resolution: learn the language of bankers

If you have not yet made it to the gym, fear not. Exchange that new year’s resolution for another: learn a new language. But make sure you learn one which has a more practical purpose than ordering a drink or finding one’s way to the swimming pool. It’s time to learn the lingo of bankers […]

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Integrity Default Alert: EU probes collusion in banking sector

Reposted from the blog of Transparency International’s EU liaison office in Brussels. Corruption thrives in the dark, dank corners where no-one is looking, and banking is no exception. Who had heard of the LIBOR benchmark until the rate-rigging scandal erupted early last year? Now it is a byword for bad behaviour in banks. This week, […]

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The banks of Cyprus and the pursuit of integrity

The bail out of the troubled banking sector in Cyprus has taken on serious political overtones as the crisis deepens. During the past few weeks Cyprus has been accused of failing to combat money laundering and fraud and that Russian oligarchs seek refuge for their money in this “tax haven” country. Now the strongest members […]

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One Thing We Learned from the U.S. Senate’s Too Big To Jail Hearing

Reposted from the blog of the Task Force on Financial Integrity & Economic Development Last week, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee held a hearing titled, “Patterns of Abuse: Assessing Bank Secrecy Act Compliance and Enforcement.” The committee called three regulators to testify: David Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, United States Department of the […]

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How well do we know our banks?

It’s your bank. You see it. Walk by it. Use the cash machine. Get a loan. But is your bank paying taxes to your government, just as you do? Does your bank report on its profits or on how many staff it employs? In short, is your bank contributing to your community and your economy? […]

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Record-breaking whistleblower award completes the circle

On 12 September 2012, the US Internal Revenue Service awarded Bradley Birkenfeld $104 million for providing information on how the Swiss bank UBS AG helped thousands of US citizens hide billions of dollars from tax authorities. Mark Worth, Transparency International’s Whistleblower Programme Coordinator, discusses what this means for whistleblowers and would-be whistleblowers everywhere. The big […]

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The financial sector: a culture of transparency?

The recent global financial crisis highlighted the need to broaden the discussion about regulation and oversight of the financial system. Transparency and related risk assessments of financial institutions have surged to the top of the agenda. In our study on transparency and disclosure of measures for reducing corruption risk among the world’s largest companies published […]

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Fail Again. Fail Better: Reform of the EU Banking Sector.

Samuel Beckett’s exhortation to “fail better” could also be applied to the EU banking sector. Time and time again, troubled financial institutions have been bailed out by the taxpayer because they have been perceived as “too important to fail”. The ability of a large number of banks to benefit from excessive risk-taking without fully absorbing […]

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The northern roots of southern Europe’s revenue problem

Reading about the Eurozone crisis in the newspapers, your natural response would be to think that Southern Europe has a problem of overspending. But it also has a revenue problem. The Southern European financial crisis and the envisaged tax Swiss-German law that would essentially launder illegal assets are two sides of the same coin. South […]

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