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FinCEN Issues FAQs Regarding Customer Due Diligence Requirements
On July 19, FinCEN issued FAQs to clarify the scope of the May 2016 Customer Due Diligence (CDD) final rule. As previously covered by InfoBytes, and as outlined in Question 2 of the recently-released FAQs, the final rule imposes standardized CDD requirements for federally regulated banks and federally insured credit unions, mutual funds, brokers or dealers in securities, futures commission merchants, and introducing brokers in commodities (collectively, covered financial institutions). While the FAQs provide a detailed description of the CDD requirements, they state that, “[i]n short, covered financial institutions are now required to obtain, verify, and record the identities of the beneficial owners of legal entity customers.” Notably, Question 5 of the FAQs clarifies that the CDD rule amends the AML program requirements to explicitly require covered financial institutions to implement and maintain risk-based procedures for conducting ongoing customer due diligence, including, but not limited to, (i) understanding the nature and purpose of the customer relationship; and (ii) conducting ongoing monitoring to identify and report suspicious transactions, as well as maintain and update customer information on a risk basis. The FAQs also note that covered financial institutions must include CDD procedures in their AML compliance program. In addition to discussing definitions for certain terms within the CDD rule, such as “account” and “beneficial owner,” the FAQs outline, among other things, the type of beneficial ownership information that covered financial institutions must collect for legal entity customers. Finally, as reiterated in the FAQs, the CDD rule has an effective date of July 11, 2016 and an applicability date of May 11, 2018.
OCC Releases Semiannual Risk Perspective Report
On July 11, the OCC released its Semiannual Risk Perspective for Spring 2016, which generally provides an overview of supervisory concerns for the federal banking system and specifically presents data as of December 31, 2015 in the following areas: (i) operating environment; (ii) bank performance; (iii) key risk issues; and (iv) regulatory actions. Similar to the fall 2015 report, the current report identifies cybersecurity, third-party vendor management, business continuity planning, TRID, and BSA/AML compliance, among other things, as key areas of potential operational and compliance risk. Further, the report highlights the new Military Lending Act rule, effective October 3, 2016, as a new key potential risk. According to the report, the OCC’s supervisory priorities for the next twelve months will generally remain the same; moreover, the outlook for the OCC’s Large Bank Supervision and Midsize and Community Bank Supervision operating units will remain broadly similar.
NYDFS Adopts Final Anti-Terrorism and Anti-Money Laundering Regulation
On June 30, the NYDFS adopted a final rule that requires regulated financial institutions to maintain a transaction monitoring program for potential BSA/AML violations and a filtering program intended to ban transactions prohibited by federal economic and trade sanctions. Further, the Board of Directors or Senior Officer(s) are required to submit annually, by April 15, a Board Resolution or Compliance Officer Finding, confirming the steps taken to ascertain compliance with the regulation and stating that, “to the best of the [Board or Officer’s] knowledge, the Transaction Monitoring and Filtering Program complies with [the regulation].” The law applies to Regulated Institutions, which include banks, trust companies, private bankers, savings banks and savings and loan associations chartered pursuant to the New York Banking Law, and all branches and agencies of foreign banking corporations licensed under the Banking Law to conduct banking operations in New York; and non-banks, which include check cashers and money transmitters licensed under the Banking Law.
Each Regulated Institution’s transaction monitoring system must be designed, reviewed, updated, and tested in accordance with the detailed parameters of the Rule. The required Filtering Program may be manual or automated, and must be “reasonably designed for the purpose of interdicting transactions that are prohibited by OFAC.” Like the Transaction Monitoring Program, the Filtering Program must also be designed, reviewed, updated, and tested in accordance with the detailed parameters of the Rule.
NYDFS Issues Virtual Currency License to XRP II, LLC
On June 13, the NYDFS announced that it approved XRP II, LLC’s application for a virtual currency license. Before approving the company’s August 2015 application, NYDFS conducted a “rigorous review” of the company’s anti-money laundering, capitalization, consumer protection, and cybersecurity standards. To date, NYDFS has received 26 BitLicense applications; two companies, including this one, have been approved for BitLicenses and two have received state trust charters. NYDFS further noted that it recently denied two applications for a virtual currency license; the companies in receipt of the denial letters were ordered to stop any New York operations.
South Carolina Passes AML Act to Regulate Money Transmitters
On June 2, the South Carolina Legislature unanimously passed House Bill 4554, the South Carolina Anti-Money Laundering Act. The Act is intended to “provide regulation and oversight of the money transmission services business most commonly used by organized criminal enterprise to launder the monetary proceeds of illegal activities, and to provide definitions, exclusions, procedures, and penalties.” Among other things, the Act outlines licensure requirements for persons engaging in the business of money transmission and/or currency exchange. Pursuant to the Act, the South Carolina AG (or Commissioner) “may conduct an annual examination of a licensee or of any of the licensee’s authorized delegates [(as defined by the Act)] on a forty-five day notice in a record to the licensee.” In addition, the Act delegates to the Commissioner the authority to suspend or review a license or order a licensee to revoke the designation of an authorized delegate. The Act will take effect either one year after it is signed by the Governor or upon publication in the State Register of final regulations implementing the Act, whichever occurs later.
SEC Charges Brokerage Firm with AML Failures
On June 1, the SEC announced that a Wall Street-based brokerage firm agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty to settle charges that it failed to sufficiently evaluate or monitor customers’ trading for suspicious activity and to file suspicious activity reports (SARs) in an alleged willful violation of Section 17(a) of the Exchange Act and Rule 17a-8. The broker-dealer was required to have written AML policies and procedures, which outlined specific examples of suspicious activities that, according to the SEC, “should have triggered internal reviews and, in a number of instances, [(SAR)] filings.” According to the SEC, the broker-dealer failed to file SARs on the following activity: (i) accounts that traded an aberrational percentage of a given stock in a particular day; (ii) accounts of entities that had executives charged with criminal securities fraud; (iii) customer trading that was the subject of grand jury subpoenas and regulatory inquiries; (iv) liquidation of securities followed immediately by large cash transfers; (v) transactions in securities that were subsequently subject to SEC trading suspensions; and (vi) rejections by other broker-dealers of attempts by the firm to transfer customers’ securities. Despite these red flags, the brokerage firm failed to file SARs for more than five years. The case represents the SEC’s first against a firm for solely failing to file SARs.
FinCEN Determines North Korea is a Jurisdiction of Primary Money Laundering Concern, Issues NPRM to further Restrict Financial Transactions
On June 1, FinCEN announced a Notice of Finding that North Korea is a jurisdiction of “primary money laundering concern” under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act. According to FinCEN, North Korea is a jurisdiction of primary money laundering because it (i) conducts international financial transactions that support the proliferation and development of WMD and ballistic missiles through its use of state-controlled financial institutions and front companies; (ii) lacks basic AML or combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) controls in its financial system; (iii) fails to maintain a diplomatic relationship with the U.S.; and (iv) relies on the alleged illicit and corrupt activity of high-level officials to support its government. In light of its findings, FinCEN further issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking to implement “a special measure to further isolate North Korea from the international financial system by prohibiting covered U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts with North Korea financial institutions, and prohibiting the use of U.S. correspondent accounts to process transactions for North Korea financial institutions.”
OCC Enters into Agreement with New York Federally Charted Savings Bank
On May 24, the OCC entered into an agreement with a New York-based federal savings bank over the bank’s allegedly unsafe or unsound banking practices “relating to strategic and capital planning, concentration risk management, and board and management oversight at the [b]ank, and violations of law relating to Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) internal controls and BSA officer requirements.” Pursuant to the agreement, the bank’s Board must, among other things, revise and adopt a written program of internal control policies and procedures that the bank must implement to ensure ongoing compliance with the BSA. The policies and procedures must include, at a minimum, (i) effective customer due diligence and enhanced due diligence processes at account opening and thereafter; (ii) adequate methodology to ensure proper risk rating of customer accounts at their opening and thereafter; (iii) effective evaluations and investigations of suspicious activity system alerts; (iv) effective suspicious activity investigation process; and (v) periodic validation of the bank’s automated BSA monitoring system settings.
DOJ Proposes Legislation Intended to Advance Anti-Corruption Efforts
On May 5, the DOJ announced that it plans to submit to Congress proposals for legislative amendments that would provide the DOJ with additional tools to advance anti-corruption work in the areas of pursuing illegal proceeds of transnational corruption and modifying the substance of criminal corruption offenses. The DOJ’s proposals regarding the illegal proceeds of transnational corruption would amend various sections of the U.S.C. to (i) expand foreign money laundering predicate crimes to include any violation of foreign law that, if committed in the U.S., would be a money laundering predicate; (ii) allow administrative subpoenas for money laundering investigations; (iii) enhance law enforcement’s ability to obtain overseas records by allowing access to foreign bank or business records by serving subpoenas on foreign bank branches located in the United States regardless of bank secrecy or data privacy laws in the foreign jurisdictions; (iv) create a framework to use and protect classified information in civil kleptocracy-related cases; and (v) extend the time period in which the United States can restrain property based on a request from a foreign country from 30 to 90 days. The proposals pertaining to substantive corruption offenses would amend 18 U.S.C. § 666 (theft or bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds) to (i) expressly criminalize the corrupt offer or acceptance of payments to “reward” official action; and (ii) lower the dollar threshold for liability from $5,000 to $1,000 to address cases where the dollar amount may be low but threat to the integrity of a government function is high.
FinCEN Announces Departure of Director Calvery
On April 26, FinCEN announced the departure of Director Calvery. Commenting on Calvery’s accomplishments during her tenure as Director, the agency opined that, “[u]nder Ms. Calvery’s direction, [it] has enhanced its reputation within the U.S. government, throughout the U.S. financial sector, and with international financial partners as a key resource in the fight against terrorist finance, money laundering, and transnational organized crime.” As Director of FinCEN since September 2012, Calvery’s team has addressed topics such as virtual currency, money laundering via real estate purchases, and terrorist financing. Calvery will be departing FinCEN at the end of May 2016.