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Treasury reported yesterday on Wednesday's virtual meeting of U.S. and UK participants in the countries' Financial Innovation Partnership to exchange views on topics of mutual interest. The Regulatory and Commercial Pillars of the Partnership met jointly to discuss deepening U.S.-UK ties in financial innovation. Also, the representatives of the U.S. Treasury Department and Her Majesty's Treasury chaired a discussion of the Regulatory Pillar of the FIP, engaging on topics including digital payments, operational resilience, cross-border testing of innovative financial services, and regulatory and supervisory technology.

Participants acknowledged the importance of the ongoing partnership in monitoring and analyzing trends in global financial innovation, as well as being an integral component of the U.S.-UK financial services cooperation.

Advisory FIN-2020-A005 has been issued by FinCEN to alert financial institutions to potential indicators of cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime observed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many illicit actors are engaged in fraudulent schemes that exploit vulnerabilities created by the pandemic.

The advisory contains descriptions of COVID-19-related malicious cyber activity and scams, associated financial red flag indicators, and information on reporting suspicious activity. FinCEN will continue issuing COVID-19-related information to financial institutions to help enhance their efforts to detect, prevent, and report suspected illicit activity on its website www.fincen.gov/coronavirus.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has published an Interpretive Letter to clarify national banks' and federal savings associations' authority to provide cryptocurrency custody services for customers. The OCC concludes that providing cryptocurrency custody services, including holding unique cryptographic keys associated with cryptocurrency, is a modern form of traditional bank activities related to custody services, and that crypto custody services may extend beyond passively holding "keys."

In a press release, the OCC said that the letter "applies to national banks and federal savings associations of all sizes and is consistent with a number of states which have already authorized state banks or trust companies to provide similar functions."

The FDIC has issued a Request for Information seeking the public's input on the potential for a public/private standard-setting partnership and voluntary certification program to promote the efficient and effective adoption of innovative technologies at FDIC-supervised financial institutions.

Released as part of the FDiTech initiative, the Request for Information asks whether the proposed program might reduce the regulatory and operational uncertainty that may prevent financial institutions from deploying new technology or entering into partnerships with technology firms, including “fintechs.” For financial institutions that choose to use the system, a voluntary certification program could help standardize due diligence practices and reduce associated costs.

Comments will be accepted for 60 days following Federal Register publication.

• Press release
• FDIC FIL-71-2020

FinCEN has issued an Alert [FIN-2020-Alert001] emphasizing a high-profile scam exploiting Twitter accounts to solicit fraudulent payments denominated in convertible virtual currency (CVC). Cyber threat actors compromised the accounts of public figures, organizations, and financial institutions to solicit payments to CVC accounts, claiming that any CVC sent to a wallet address would be doubled and returned to the sender. Persons who receive one of these solicitations should not send money or provide any personal or confidential information to these individuals without independent verification of authenticity.

The Alert says it is critical that CVC exchanges and other financial institutions identify and report suspicious transactions associated with this type of activity as quickly as possible. For example, a CVC or other financial account may receive a high volume of payments in a short period of time from previously unaffiliated accounts and/or multiple originating CVC addresses.

Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service has announced the launch of its new website, FiscalData.Treasury.gov, which assembles 18 of the most popular federal financial datasets, including the Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, Monthly Treasury Statement, Daily Treasury Statement and Debt to the Penny. FiscalData.Treasury.gov will serve as the central location for financial data, giving customers the ability to:

• Explore datasets on topics such as debt, revenue, and spending
• Review timely and historical data, in one case dating as far back as 1790
• View and analyze trends over time

Users will be able to download data in several machine-readable formats such as CSV, JSON, HTML, and through APIs. They will also have access to comprehensive metadata, data documentation, and data dictionaries.

The Treasury Department has reported that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) concluded its 31st plenary meeting by calling on its members to tackle new threats and vulnerabilities posed by criminals during the COVID-19 crisis. The FATF also completed a 12-month review of progress made by jurisdictions on implementing the new FATF standards on virtual assets adopted during the U.S. presidency of the FATF. The international task force further agreed upon draft text, on which it will seek public consultation, revising its standards to incorporate measures to counter proliferation financing, and adopted a groundbreaking report on money laundering and illegal wildlife trafficking.

The FDIC announced on Tuesday a rapid prototyping competition to help develop a new and innovative approach to financial reporting, particularly for community banks.

The agency has invited 20 technology firms to participate. They will develop proposed solutions over several months for consideration by the FDIC. The agency intends that the modern tools developed in this and future competitions "will help make financial reporting seamless and less burdensome for banks, provide more timely and granular data to the FDIC on industry health, and promote more efficient supervision of individual banks."

The CFPB yesterday announced its first-ever Tech Sprints to reduce regulatory burden and improve consumer understanding of financial services. The Bureau’s Tech Sprints program will bring together regulators, technologists, software providers, consumer groups, and financial institutions to develop technological solutions to shared compliance challenges. The first Tech Sprint will kick off in October with another in March 2021.

The focus of the October session will be improving upon existing consumer disclosures, the use of digital technology and alternative delivery mechanisms such as online and mobile, for notification of adverse credit actions.

The March 2021 session will focus on the HMDA data submission process.

One of the leaders of the Infraud Organization pleaded guilty Friday to Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Action (RICO) conspiracy following an investigation lead by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Henderson, Nevada, police department. Infraud was an internet-based cybercriminal enterprise engaged in the large-scale acquisition, sale, and dissemination of stolen identities, compromised debit and credit cards, personally identifiable information, financial and banking information, computer malware, and other contraband.

Sergey Medvedev, aka “Stells,” “segmed,” “serjbear,” 33, of the Russian Federation, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. According to the indictment, the Infraud Organization was created in October 2010 by Svyatoslav Bondarenko aka “Obnon,” “Rector,” and “Helkern,” 34, of Ukraine, to promote and grow interest in the Infraud Organization as the premier destination for “carding” – purchasing retail items with counterfeit or stolen credit card information – on the Internet. Under the slogan “In Fraud We Trust,” the organization directed traffic and potential purchasers to the automated vending sites of its members, which served as online conduits to traffic in stolen means of identification, stolen financial and banking information, malware, and other illicit goods. It also provided an escrow service to facilitate illicit digital currency transactions among its members and employed screening protocols that purported to ensure only high quality vendors of stolen cards, personally identifiable information, and other contraband were permitted to advertise to members. In March 2017, there were 10,901 registered members of the Infraud Organization.

• U.S. Immigration and Customer Enforcement (ICE) press release