The Wolfsberg Group of large private banks has updated its Correspondent Banking Due Diligence Questionnaire and related material such as its answers to frequently asked questions and its glossary.

The questionnaire - for banks to send to each other - aims to set a higher standard than before for cross-border and/or other correspondent banking 'due diligence.' The group expects all member-banks to phase its use in, eventually applying it to all of their respondent banks.

In the long term, it is the group’s view that the adoption of a standardised, reasonable questionnaire should guarantee a less arduous, and thereby inherently less costly, compliance process. The group argues that, in the end, this ought to support the objectives of the 'Group of 20' industrialised nations (although it does not explain why it discounts the opinions of all the other nations of the Earth) and other supranational organisations towards a regulatory standard in the correspondent banking business. It believes that it will help abate the problem of 'de-risking,' the practice whereby banks shed relationships with other banks that they perceive as highly risky for money laundering purposes, although this seems a trifle far-fetched.

The group has also issued a shorter version of the questionnaire. Its secretariat has created a dedicated address for any questions on the subject: ddq@wolfsberg-principles.com

The Financial Stability Board, with which the G20 replaced the Financial Stability Forum in 2009 on the grounds that it had not done a particularly good job, has also hailed the new documents as a way of staunching the decline in the number of correspondent banking relationships. It hopes that it will do this "by facilitating due diligence processes," whatever that means.

The Wolfsberg Group is a club of private banks that sets self-regulatory standards that combat financial crime. Its 13 members are: Banco Santander, the Bank of America, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Barclays Bank, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Société Générale, Standard Chartered Bank, and UBS.