Federal anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, rooted in the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and USA PATRIOT Act, have long required financial institutions to maintain internal control systems to assure compliance, provide for independent testing, designate individuals responsible for compliance and provide training for all appropriate personnel. Moving beyond this federal BSA/AML framework, the New York State [...]
Anti-money laundering regulations require financial institutions to prevent their customers from conducting illegal business activities through their services. AML transaction monitoring software uses artificial intelligence to sift through thousands of transactions to identify deviations from usual and customary activity, as defined by the rules and parameters programmed into the software. Not all alerts indicate wrongdoing, [...]
ADI was engaged by a community bank to overhaul its BSA/AML customer risk-scoring model and provide tools so that it could more effectively manage its Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) program for high-risk customers. Assessing the Challenge BSA/AML risk is dynamic and must be continuously managed. It is critical that risk ratings accurately reflect current risks, [...]
The US Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), an organization comprised of representatives from state-level banking regulatory bodies, has released the final version of its model regulatory framework for digital currencies. The group recommended that companies involved with third-party exchange or transmission of digital currencies, as well as “services that facilitate the third-party exchange, storage [...]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published a report focused on anti-money laundering efforts, as part of its Financial Sector Assessment Program for the United States. Per the program, the IMF conducts a regulatory review every five years across many U.S. financial sectors. In this most recent report, the IMF concluded that the U.S., despite [...]
Recently, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) imposed a $75,000 penalty on Colorado money services business, Aurora Sunmart Inc., and its owner and General Manager, Jamal Awad, for violating Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) requirements. FinCen asserted that Aurora and Awad “willfully violated” the BSA’s registration, program and reporting requirements and also did not have an [...]
Regulators have ordered a total of five Fulton Financial Corp. entities to improve deficiencies in their Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering compliance. Fulton Financial and Lafayette Ambassador Bank entered into cease and desist orders this month with the Federal Reserve for compliance deficiencies for anti-money laundering. (see PDF) Three other Fulton subsidiaries—Fulton Bank, Swineford [...]
BSA oversight and regulation has increased sharply over the past couple of years. BSA and compliance officers share stories of the aggressiveness of regulators and granular scrutiny that examiners are putting both large and small institutions through. The good news from this increased oversight is the number of formal regulatory actions (written agreements and Cease [...]
