Tuesday, April 26, 2011

But is it Macroprudential?

File this in your dictionary of new fince term, somewhere near "algorithmic shredding"--microsmurfing:

The term "smurfing" refers to the small army of people hired by money launderers to make small denomination bank deposits. Smurfing, and its more recent variation, micro-smurfing, has been one of the most common ways that money launderers, most often working on behalf of drug organizations, have laundered proceeds of criminal activity.
Micro-structuring (or micro-smurfing) tries to defeat transaction-monitoring systems by making the deposits so small they "fly under the radar" of the detection rules embedded in the software systems. While micro-structuring is difficult to detect and prevent, banks can and should be able to meet this challenge.
Source: inhouse manual of a major consultancy.  

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