After the news of a banker's offspring trying to blow up a flight late last December by hiding explosive materials in his underpants, we wonder how such individuals get so close to committing such acts. Can't we monitor them better? Is there no way to identify the honest person from the dishonest or the outright terrorist?
This is a core issue in all aspects of modern life and particularly in banking, where it is wrapped up in our anti-money laundering and 'know your customer' rules. On the one hand, we want to give customers good service which should be helped by knowing the client; on the other, we want to avoid dishonest or politically exposed customers, which is why we have such rigorous account-opening and transaction-reporting standards. But are they that rigorous? The 9/11 terror attacks were funded by hundreds of sub-$1000 transactions, and a person who keeps a straight line until the day they walk across it is hard to pre-identify.
