Regulators Won’t Stop Big Bank Malfeasance

TD Bank just made headlines for pleading guilty to the crime of money laundering and a variety of other charges. Bankers there provided services to despicable people who needed a way to recycle the cash proceeds acquired by selling everything from drugs to children.

TD Bank, which will pay a total of $3.09 billion in fines, is yet another giant bank with a long rap sheet.

The bank’s CEO, Bharat Masrani, said "This is a difficult chapter in our bank's history. These failures took place on my watch as CEO, and I apologize to all our stakeholders."

Bureaucrats in a handful of government agencies put out press releases. They talked triumphantly about their strong and decisive action and proudly announced the largest fine ever imposed for violation of the Bank Secrecy Act.

Before anyone starts clapping their hands, here is a list of things regulators didn’t cover:

• The CEO didn’t indicate he was going to take responsibility by resigning.
• Regulators didn’t announce that any top executives would be prosecuted.
• The cost of the fines will be shouldered by the shareholders directly and the depositors indirectly (who played no part in the criminal activity), not by the employees who actually committed the violations.
• Regulators didn’t put an estimate on the profits earned by the bank through the illicit activity. It’s possible executives simply view the fines as a cost of doing business.
• The bank’s licenses for operations and trading have not been threatened. There is apparently nothing a large, multinational bank can do which would result in regulators pulling the licenses and shutting them down.
• There is no detail as to what the regulators will do with the billions they collect. Given the track record, it likely won’t be anything good or useful.

The regulators tasked with keeping the banking industry on the straight and narrow are part of the problem.

Investors and consumers are going to have to hold the world’s largest banks to account.

For now, though, their stock prices are doing just fine.

Perhaps most customers have decided moving accounts is more trouble than it is worth. However, there are plenty of smaller, more accountable credit unions and banks without a rap sheet.

Elsewhere there are some signs investors and customers are waking up and taking action. Target, Budweiser, and Disney have all felt the sting of a boycott in recent years. The idea that you should stop doing business with people who act against your interests and/or values is picking up steam.

Likewise, the boom in gold and silver markets during the past few years is essentially a no-confidence vote in a variety of failing institutions.

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