Jim Richards has three decades of experience leading large bank financial crimes programs. A published author, accomplished public speaker, Jim provides a unique blend of law enforcement, prosecutorial, and private sector experiences across all facets of financial crimes risk management including program and governance leadership, board-level reporting, and the design and implementation of AML surveillance and analytics systems.

Prior to forming RegTech Consulting in April 2018, Jim was an Executive Vice-President, the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) Officer, and Global Director of Financial Crimes Risk Management for Wells Fargo & Co. for thirteen years. As BSA officer, he was responsible for governance and program oversight for BSA, anti-money laundering (AML), and sanctions for Wells Fargo’s global operations. As director of the global financial crimes risk management group, he was responsible for governance and program execution of BSA, AML, counter-terrorist financing (CTF), external fraud, global sanctions, financial crimes analytics, and high-risk customer due diligence. Jim was a member of the Wells Fargo management committee and enterprise risk management committee. Jim also represented Wells Fargo with the Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group (BSAAG), US Department of the Treasury.

Prior to his role with Wells Fargo, Jim was the AML operations executive at Bank of America. There, Jim was responsible for the operational aspects of Bank of America’s global AML and CTF monitoring, surveillance, investigations, and related SAR reporting. Like at Wells, Jim also represented Bank of America with the BSAAG.

Jim is a sought-after speaker at financial crime and AML conferences, and is the author of “Transnational Criminal Organizations, Cybercrime, and Money Laundering.” Jim has a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Comm.) degree and JD from the University of British Columbia. He lives in Walnut Creek, CA.