The head of a US Treasury office that has handed down a series of large fines against banks for violating economic sanctions, pledged that he is not “looking for a scalp or to raise up a victory flag”. However, he acknowledged his unit had become a “four-letter word” for many compliance officers in the financial services industry.

Adam Szubin, director of the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, told more than 100 attendees at the Sibos conference in Boston that banks were "on the front lines" of keeping wrongdoers out of the international financial system.