HSBC pays 300 million euros to settle investigation of Swiss bank

HSBC Holdings has agreed to pay 300 million euros ($353 million) to settle a long-running investigation into tax evasion by French citizens via its private bank in Switzerland, the lender said on Tuesday. read more »

Top 5 Most Common Healthcare Provider Fraud Activities

The most common healthcare provider fraud activities drain public payer finances and promote unsafe care conditions for beneficiaries.

Healthcare provider fraud is extraordinarily common and can be conducted at a shockingly large scale.  The largest healthcare provider fraud takedown in US history was announced just recently, resulting charges against 400 defendants in 41 federal districts for schemes totaling $1.3 billion, according to HHS and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). 

Providers involved in fraud relied on creative schemes such as forgery, bribes, fake patients, and falsified billings to financially benefit from administrative vulnerabilities in public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Based on public data from the OIG and GAO, what are the most common healthcare provider fraud activities and how much of an impact can they have on patient safety and public welfare? read more »

Bitcoin Plunge Exposes a Fundamental Flaw

It's not the environmental cost of crypto that should worry investors. It's the politics.

Virtual currency's threat to the human environment has been hitting the headlines recently. The race to mine new Bitcoins, exacerbated by rules that make the process use more computer power as time goes on, threatens one day to consume as much power as the whole of Japan, according to Citi. Already, Bitcoin mines stacked high with customized machines whir away in Inner Mongolia, hinting at the crypto-currency's "Mad Max" problem, as ING's Teunis Brosens puts it.

But this is a problem only as long as people are desperate for new Bitcoin, and only as long as its rules remain fixed. The dramatic events over the past three days have shown us that neither is guaranteed. The tumble in value of the granddaddy of crypto-currencies, from about $7,300 to just more than $5,600, is testament to its biggest sustainability problem: An inability to evolve as a piece of code without tearing itself apart. read more »

NY state regulator fines Credit Suisse $135 mln over forex practices

Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.S) on Monday agreed to pay $135 million to New York to resolve a probe of misconduct in its foreign exchange business, which the state’s banking regulator said deceived customers to enhance its own profits. read more »