My, My, My. Seems that Zion's Bank got spanked by the feds for lack of proper anti-money laundering controls. This is a very big deal because literally billions of dollars got wired around the world over the years through Zions and a lot of it was probably dirty.

Hey, maybe that's where the cash came from to build City Creek! Remember no tithing money was used.....hehehe.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/51235852-79/bank-zions-suspicious-money.html.csp

... "suspicious wire transfers of billions of dollars related to transactions that may have involved drug trafficking and other crimes" ...

Doesn't shock me in the least.

From Aug. 2010

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700060512/Zions-Direct-fined-for-failure-to-disclose-relationship-with-bidder.html

And from Oct. 2010

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/50212370-79/zions-lam-woodwell-business.html.csp


And you just have to love this comment from the Pres. of Zions:

______

....James Abbott, senior vice president in charge of Zions’ investor relations, said the missteps resulted from clerical oversights that don’t add up to a pattern of willful misbehavior.

“While it’s disappointing, we work very hard to maintain a culture of compliance and are very careful,” Abbott said.

_______

And now they are caught money laundering 12.9 BILLION dollars in 138 transactions !!! That's a lot of dough in a very few transactions -- can anybody say "cartel" or "mafia"?

February 10th:

Utah Bank Zions Plans To Sell $200M In Stock
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110210-720167.html

Zions Bancorporation Announces Entry Into New Equity Distribution Agreements

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/zions-bancorporation-announces-entry-into-new-equity-distribution-agreements-115771424.html

AND THE VERY NEXT DAY.....

February 11th:
US Fines Zions Bancorp Unit $8M On Money Laundering Rules
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110211-711576.html

I think it is a mistake to assume that Zions Bank is no longer a mormon institution. Yes, it's traded on the stock exchange, but most of the members of the Board of Directors are mormons, the lawyers that represent them are mormons, and the current Profit, Tommy Monson, still goes out to "bless" new branches.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700032512/President-Thomas-S-Monson-dedicates-Zions-Bank-Financial-Center.html

The current fines represent 138 transactions, which works out to an average of about 9 million per transaction. These are not small-time Mexican immigrants sending money home, as some doofus in the SL Tribune readers' comments section claimed. Looks like mormon mafia to me.

As far as the comment from Carol Y. [comments section of the Tribune] goes about not stealing because the government doesn't want competition, how do you square that comment with the fact that Zions Bank took 1.4 billion in TARP money from the government, and that Zions Bank is one of the few recipients of TARP money that has not paid any of that money back to tax payers like Carol Y.?

http://bailoutsleuth.com/news/2010/07/as-tarp-begins-winding-down-big-debt-remain/

See #8 in the list on the website page at the above link.

An interesting side note. Their last 10K (annual report to the government) is required to be available to the public. It can be seen at
http://quote.morningstar.com/stock-filing/Annual-Report/2009/12/31/t.aspx?t=&ft=10-K&d=4fecc266640c83c5a9892f30a8d7ab97

The interesting thing about this report is that two sections are absent and refer to a separate, subsequent filing which is not public.

ITEM 12. SECURITY OWNERSHIP OF CERTAIN BENEFICIAL OWNERS AND MANAGEMENT AND RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS
Other information required by Item 12 is incorporated by reference from the Company’s Proxy Statement to be subsequently filed.

ITEM 13. CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED TRANSACTIONS, AND DIRECTOR INDEPENDENCE
Incorporated by reference from the Company’s Proxy Statement to be subsequently filed.

They have effectively gotten around the public reporting requirement to report related party transactions, insider trading and board independence.

 

. . . which got Joseph Smith and Signey Rigdon fined by court judgment, as well as hit with other lawsuits:

http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/josephsmithsbank.htm
 

" The church does not have a majority interest in this bank anymore-- since 1960. Maybe they would have done better if it had and not been slapped with penalties."

That's true WCG, but that's where the church puts it's money according to Monson:

"You can rest assured that this church doesn't put its investments and its confidence in anything that isn't stable, honorable and (having) a record of performance and integrity," he said.

This from the web site of Monson dedicating the new Zion's Bank in Provo. "...a record of performance and integrity," Now I am confused.

Am I wrong to take such gleeful delight when putting a morgbot on the defensive?

 

All but two of its board members are Mormons.

The mormon church is the largest loan client the bank has... What does that tell you about the loss of Zion;s bank, and now its multimillion dollar Federal fines for money laundering??

I worked in banks for years. In the past decades there were new rules on deposits of a single $10,000, or a combination that equaled $10,000 or more, especially in one day. Those would trigger special forms to be filled out.

I can't imagine what they were doing with wire transfers of:
"billions of dollars related to transactions that may have involved drug trafficking and other crimes."

Notice the word: "may" -- there is no evidence of a crime or drug trafficking in this report. It probably just involves sloppy paperwork or missing paperwork.

How much paperwork is involved in a wire transfer? I thought the whole idea behind a wire transfer was to limit paperwork transactions. I'm not a banker...just asking.

Anybody who equates Zion's bank with Mormonism in general is missing the point. Both of them are businesses, and because of that, they are vastly separate.

Yes, maybe vastly separate. But then why was Monson [current Mormon prophet] in Provo at the dedication of the new Zion's Bank? That has always been strange to me for a church president to dedicate and pray over a private business.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700032512/President-Thomas-S-Monson-dedicates-Zions-Bank-Financial-Center.html

The report SusieQ mentioned is for CASH deposits of over $10000. Zions didn't mess up on those reports. Cash deposits weren't even part of their problem. And I disagree that this was a simple matter of misfiled or sloppy paperwork.

I've worked in financial institution compliance for over 15 years and specialize in the requirements for the Bank Secrecy Act (the law Zions violated). It appears that Zions did not have proper monitoring procedures in place for detecting suspicious deposits made via remote deposit capture or for detecting suspicious wire transfers. Zions did their own review once the realize they had a problem and agreed the transactions were suspicious.

You have to realize that a bank as large as Zions processes thousands of these transactions every day. I don't believe for a second that the bank knowingly processed money laundering related transactions, but they didn't have systems in place to detect them either. THAT is what they got fined for.

Financial institutions have to proactively look for suspicious transactions and report them immediately. It doesn't matter if transactions were actually related to money laundering. The failure happened when they didn't detect the suspicious transactions and report them.

Why do you guys keep tying this bank to the morg? Other than it's roots, there's virtually no significant relationship anymore. FRM, Wells Fargo and Vanguard are the largest shareholders. It's a non-issue.

Secondly, virtually every major bank in the US has been fined for non-SAR reporting in Mexico. Again, a non-issue. Exchange houses in Mexico are common entities and, until recently, banks haven't been filing the requisite Suspicious Activities Reports. Now they will. Union Bank, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, Citibank, US Bank... all have been fined.

Ron

Monson dedicated the new head quarters last year.

... and founded by the LDS Church, and run by LDS church members, and into which the LDS Church chooses to deposit its money, would be a little different from all the others which also got fined. I guess not. Do you see the point?

Does anyone have a transcript of the Provo dedicatory prayer? These are about all I can find.

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/59370/A-shining-star-in-business-community.html

http://universe.byu.edu/node/8421

"You can rest assured that this church doesn't put its investments and its confidence in anything that isn't stable, honorable and (having) a record of performance and integrity," he said. Tommy Monson

I found this one from Hinckley on the Salt Lake dedication:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/660192259/Zions-Bank-hails-rededicated-site.html

"We commend those who made the decision to locate the bank and its associated properties in this location," he said. "May it ever be a bright and shining star in the business community of Salt Lake City, and may its influence extend and be felt across the nation."

"This is a cornerstone property of the City Creek project," Huntsman said.