A Call for Action on De-Risking – Podcast with US Treasury Under Secretary Nathan Sheets

Recently, CGD launched a major report about how laws designed to prevent money being sent overseas to terrorists and criminals can also have unintended consequences for innocent people in developing countries.

These laws impose huge fines on financial institutions that have done business with a dodgy client – knowingly or not. To avoid the risk of these fines, banks pull out of markets they see as potentially risky. That tends to mean developing countries.

At CGD's report launch event, Dr. Nathan Sheets, US Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs, called for banks and policymakers to "commit significant resources and take on new responsibilities" in order to address this challenge "in a way that protects our joint goals of supporting financial connectivity and inclusion and maintaining the integrity of the financial system." I sat down with him afterwards to record an interview – that’s today’s podcast.