TD BANK NOW GUN-SHY, BUT IT'S TOO LITTLE AND TOO LATE

You've gotta love that story this week, by a longtime customer of TD BANK, who cam into a branch to withdraw $3000, which was to be used to pay for a big holiday family dinner. It took a full half hour for the bank to disburse the cash, ad the customers went through no less than three staff members, some of whom had the temerity of asking their customer for the purpoise of this "large" withdrawal.

Of course, there was no disclosure, and the bank staff finally dispensed that small amount of cash, but it shows you that bank staff must be feeling pressure after that billion dollar penalty for facilitating money laundering over a period of time. Here in South Florida, compliance officers knew there were flaws in the bank's AML program, after one of its vice presidents went to Federal Prison here a decade ago for assisting a Fort Lauderdale law firm perpetrate a huge Ponzi scheme.

Presently, the bank's involvement in operating a correspondent account for a corrupt Caribbean Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) agency in Saint Lucia, where allegations of massive money laundering and fraud appear to have gone intentionally ignored, is just one more indicator that things were not right in the bank's AML/CFT compliance programs.

The question is;: will any of the bank's senior management go to prison for their egregious, intentional operations, which trumped profits over following banking best practices? Unfortunately, they are letting those criminals retire, from what I have seen. So much for deterrence.