ING

ING Is Not the Exception — It Is the Warning Sign of Europe’s AML Failure

ING’s new AML settlement and the same message ING Belgium has agreed to pay a €1.6 million criminal settlement in a money-laundering investigation linked to transactions involving Didier Reynders, the former Belgian minister and former EU Commissioner for Justice. According to reporting on the Brussels prosecutor’s announcement, the case concerned

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PSR and PSD3

Payee Verification in EU Payments: Useful Safeguard, Limited Solution

Verification of Payee is one of the most praised anti-fraud tools in EU payments law. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/886 (IPR – Instant Payment Regulation), payment service providers must offer payers a service that checks whether the payee’s name corresponds to the payment account identifier before a euro credit transfer is

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B2G GmbH analysis as of 04.01.2026

BaFin knew: But Victims’ Money Continued to Flow for Months

We have reviewed excerpts from the criminal case files concerning B2G GmbH. These records show that although BaFin had been aware of the laundering activities of Oleg Shvartsman and Rainer Treuer since November 2017, no SARs were filed with the FIU and/or law enforcement, and payment rails remained open until

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Hamers escapes liability

€775m AML Scandal, Zero Accountability for Hamers

On 3 December 2025, the Court of Appeal in The Hague granted the Dutch prosecutor’s request to stop the criminal prosecution of ING’s former CEO in the so-called “Houston” money-laundering case (ECLI:NL:GHDHA:2025:2436).  From now on, it is clear: after almost a decade of debate around ING’s role in massive AML

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KuCoin MiCA license in Austria

KuCoin’s MiCA Licence In Austria: Red Flag For Europe

On 27 November 2025, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) granted KuCoin EU Exchange GmbH a  a licence as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under the MiCA regime for CASPs (Title V MiCA). With this single administrative act, KuCoin obtains EU-wide passporting rights: from Vienna, it can now offer regulated

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Tear Down this Wallet Garden

Coin Center on AML: US “Walled Garden” Lessons for Europe

The Coin Center report “Tear Down this Walled Garden: American Values and Digital Identity” argues that our current AML/KYC identity system is expensive, privacy-invasive, and largely useless against real crime – and that open, decentralised digital identity built on cryptography and blockchains could do much better. Coin Center is a

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