2017 will be an exciting year…
There are numerous important court cases that finally come to an end. Especially customers of FBME Bank in Cyprus and Tanzania will get clarity when independent courts and justice systems order their verdicts.
As we’ve seen in the relevant court information, Judge Cooper in the USA gave FBME a last straw to fight till the end but the judge already hinted in 2015 that the Court is persuaded that FinCEN has strong enough support for its factual assertion in this regard that any comment from FBME would not make a difference. Furthermore, the Court is not inclined to second guess FinCEN’s exercise of its broad discretion in finding that FBME poses a primary money laundering concern, or its resulting imposition of the fifth special measure.
But in any court of law, it is the judge who needs to decide based on the presented records whether the actions taken by the US Treasury department were legitimate.
In Italy, the oldest bank in the world, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, will be saved by the government after the banks own rescue mission miserably failed. The EU agreed on a specific measure because of the impact the collapse of Monte dei Paschi on the world economy.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Basel Committee wants to implement new banking rules. Part of the new rules is a raise of the capital buffer in case of negative scenarios.
In the United Kingdom, the Brexit creates challenges on its own. Banks and law firms slowly start to move parts of their business units to Ireland to keep access to the European internal market. The value of the Sterling went down after the Brexit referendum and although there is potential after the Brexit, it will take a few years to recover from such a drastic move.
But… the value of the Bitcoin is in an upwards trend and its price marked the 1.000 USD point early January.
We therefore can only conclude that it is going to be an exciting year; enjoy!