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Introduction
Latvia’s non-resident banking sector, which caters to clients from Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), has finally become politically untenable. After years of scandals and massive illicit flows through Latvia, the government has concluded that the non-resident banking sector as currently constituted poses a threat to Latvian national security. The precipitating event was the targeting in February 2018 of Latvia’s third-largest bank, ABLV, by the U.S. Treasury Department, which found that ABLV had “institutionalized money laundering as a pillar of the bank’s business practices.”[1] Days later, Latvia’s central bank governor was …read more
Latvian Banking: Recent Reforms, Sustainable Solutions
