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The Department of the Treasury has outlined the priorities it will pursue this year to step up the fight against illicit finance.

The agency aims to increase transparency, leverage partnerships and support responsible technological innovation, it said in a Thursday (May 16) press release announcing the publication of its “2024 National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing.”

One of the Department’s priorities for the year is closing legal and regulatory gaps in the country’s anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, according to the release. It aims to do so by operationalizing the beneficial ownership information registry; finalizing rules covering the residential real estate and investment advisor sectors; and assessing the vulnerability of other sectors.

A second priority is promoting a more effective and risk-focused AML/CFT regulatory and supervisory framework for financial institutions, the release said. The Department will work to do so by providing clear compliance guidance, sharing information and providing resources for supervision and enforcement.

The Department also aims to enhance the operational effectiveness of law enforcement, other U.S. government agencies and international partnerships to combat illicit finance, per the release.

The fourth priority announced in the press release is realizing “the benefits of responsible technological innovation” by developing new payments technology, supporting the use of new mechanisms for compliance, and using automation and innovation to find new ways to fight illicit finance, the release said.

“In this critical moment for our national and economic security, we need to continue to close the pathways that illicit actors seek to exploit for their schemes,” Brian E. Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the release. “We recognize the threat illicit financial activity represents to our national security, economic prosperity, and our democratic values, and are focused on addressing both the challenges of today and emerging concerns.”

These recommendations are meant to address key risks the Department of the Treasury identified in February in its “2024 National Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Proliferation Financing Risk Assessments.”

In another recent move, the Treasury Department said in April that it wants more tools to curb terror financing.

In testimony released ahead of an April 9 appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said terrorist groups and state actors continually “seek new ways to move their resources in light of the actions we are taking to cut them off from accessing the traditional financial system.”

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The post Treasury Department to Use ‘Automation and Innovation’ to Fight Illicit Finance appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Illustration: The Verge

On Thursday evening, many iPhone owners (including some here at The Verge) saw the “not delivered” flag when trying to send texts via iMessage. People reported the problem across multiple wireless carriers (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile), countries, and even continents.

The Apple services status page didn’t show any indication of trouble while the problems were going on, but now it has been updated after the fact, reflecting a resolved issue where “Users were unable to use this service” for iMessage, Apple Messages for Business, FaceTime, and HomeKit. According to the note, the problems went on from about 5:39PM ET until 6:35PM ET.

Screenshot: Apple.com

Apple has not responded to inquiries or otherwise commented on…

Continue reading…

Walmart’s grocery business is reportedly benefiting from the high price of fast food.

The retailer’s chief financial officer, John David Rainey, told CNBC Thursday (May 16) that it’s “roughly 4.3 times more expensive” to buy a meal at a quick-service restaurant (QSR) than it is to purchase the ingredients needed to make a meal at home.

“And that’s benefiting our business,” he said, per the report.

Rainey added that the gap between the two prices is widening because some grocery items are holding their price or becoming cheaper, according to the report.

This news comes on the same day that Walmart reported better-than-expected first quarter earnings.

During the company’s quarterly earnings call held Thursday, both Rainey and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon attributed consumer spending increases seen during the quarter to the retailer’s value proposition.

McMillon said during the call: “We have almost 7,000 [price] rollbacks. That’s really helping. In our food categories, we see an even larger spread between eating at home, preparing meals at home, and eating out, which we think can help Walmart over the remainder of the year.”

Across the economy, there have been signs of pullbacks in “nice-to-have” items, with consumers choosing to save dollars on those items and earmark them instead for essential goods and services.

For example, Starbucks saw headwinds from repeat business from occasional customers; and comp sales were down by 4%. Similarly, QSRs have seen some headwinds as disposable income has waned.

PYMNTS Intelligence has found that consumers are also rethinking their nonessential spending amid ongoing high prices at the grocery store.

Sixty-eight percent of consumers who live paycheck to paycheck and have trouble paying their bills say they have found themselves making tradeoffs between “essential” items and those they see as “nice-to-have,” according to “The New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report.”

As for QSRs, it was reported Friday (May 10) that McDonald’s is encouraging franchisees to vote to implement a $5 meal deal to bring back customers who have left because of high prices.

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said during the company’s latest earnings call that the company had to focus on affordability and that the firm currently doesn’t have a “national value platform.”

The post Walmart CFO: Shoppers Replacing Fast Food With Groceries appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Earlier this week the WSJ reported that Walmart is seeking to acquire VIZIO for over $2 billion. Colin and I discuss the likely strategic rationale behind the deal. We both like the benefits to both companies with grabbing a bigger share of CTV ad spending a big upside.

Meanwhile, the Super Bowl scored a record 123.4 viewers across all platforms according to Paramount. The company also said it was the most-streamed Super Bowl in history, but didn’t disclose how many streamers there actually were. We dig into the numbers and Colin provides his estimates.

Listen to the podcast to learn more (22 minutes, 52 seconds)

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A potential Circle to Search feature for Google Chrome on iOS has been spotted, and it appears to be coming soon.

Applied research from the Worldcoin Foundation and TACEO, a team of cryptography engineers, has advanced the biometric template protection and enabled the secure deletion of Worldcoin’s previous iris code system. Working within a field of cryptography “known as secure multi-party computation (SMPC), Worldcoin and TACEO… Read More

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced it is looking for candidates for the  Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee (SBCFAC). The SBCFAC crafts recommendations to submit to the Commission advocating on behalf of smaller firms in need of capital. This includes feedback on… Read More

Solana-based DeFi memecoin platform Pump.fun experienced a significant breach on May 16 when an exploiter apparently utilized flash loans to manipulate the platform’s bonding curve contracts.

The platform has since paused all trading activities.

In a statement on social media, Pump.fun acknowledged the exploit and assured users that the platform is investigating the issue. The team wrote:

“We have upgraded the contracts so the attacker cannot siphon any more funds. The TVL in the protocol right now is safe. We’ve paused trading — you cannot buy and sell any coins at the moment. Any coins that are currently in the process of migrating to Raydium cannot be traded and will not be migrating for an indefinite period of time.”

Industry experts, including Wintermute head of research Igor Igamberdiev, suggested that a key had been compromised, raising the possibility of an inside job. He estimated the loss to be at least 12,000 SOL, equivalent to roughly $2 million.

An account on X, identified as STACCoveflow, claimed responsibility for the attack shortly after the exploit broke in the news. Stacc hinted at a larger motive in their posts, stating:

“I’m about to change the course of history.”

He implied that he did not intend to keep the stolen funds but planned to redistribute the “remaining balances of bonding curves” to certain token users. The exact method Stacc used to execute the attack remains unclear, and it is unknown if the balances are indeed being distributed to other users.

The account allegedly belongs to a doxxed developer who previously worked on Pump.fun. Additionally, several accounts claimed that Stacc had airdropped the stolen SOL to holders of four different coins.

However, CryptoSlate was unable to verify the claims on social media as of press time.

The post Pump.fun halts trading after suffering flash loan exploit appeared first on CryptoSlate.