A process of "derisking" is underway by financial firms exiting sectors that represent compliance landmines, bankers said on Tuesday, but a top U.S. sanctions enforcer said that is sometimes just the right move. "It is not at all uncommon for me to hear that a compliance overhaul was done and certain customers, certain lines of activity were deemed too risky to persist. That may be exactly the right response to a situation where the risk outweighs the benefit," said Adam Szubin, director of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the lead agency for the enforcement of U.S. financial sanctions. Szubin addressed the annual SIBOS conference by Swift, the financial industry's communications cooperative. At the conference, bankers cited lines of business they were reconsidering amid an enforcement crackdown and rising penalties for sanctions violations. The $9 billion fine and guilty plea BNP Paribas agreed to in June, under a deal with U.S. authorities over charges
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