Customer Due Diligence

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Bank’s Alleged “Tick Box” Approach Failed to Attain Substantive AML Compliance

Late last week, the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”), the United Kingdom’s financial services regulator, imposed a $1.2 million (896,100 pound) fine on the UK division of India’s Canara Bank, an Indian state-owned bank, and ordered a moratorium on new deposits for nearly five months.  The cause—according to Reuters—was Canara’s systemic anti-money laundering (“AML”) failures.

A 44-page final notice published by the FCA explains the multi-year regulatory process that led to a finding of systemic failures and the imposition of penalties.  The FCA’s investigation began in late 2012 and early 2013 with assessments of Canara’s AML systems.  Upon inspection, the FCA “notified Canara of a number of serious weaknesses in its AML systems and controls.”  After promises of remedial action by Canara, an April 2015 visit revealed that the AML systems had not been fixed.  The investigation ended with a final report from a “skilled person,” an expert brought in by the FCA to assess Canara’s AML policies and procedures, completed in January 2016.  Settlement followed, resulting in sanctions and the FCA’s published final notice.

These three visits from the FCA generated a laundry list of Canara’s AML shortcomings.  This enforcement action reflects three main take-aways: (i) the potential risks faced by banks operating in foreign countries in which they have limited AML experience; (ii) the need for swift remedial action after the first examination finding AML deficiencies; and (iii) the need for a substantive AML policy implemented in a substantive way, rather than through a rote reliance on AML-related checklists.…
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Incorporation Solidifies Customer Due Diligence as “Fifth Pillar” to BSA/AML Compliance Program

May 11, 2018 was the much anticipated effective date for the Customer Due Diligence (“CDD”) Requirements for Financial Institutions Rule (the “Beneficial Ownership Rule”) issued by the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”). On the same day, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (“FFIEC”) released two updates to the Bank Secretary Act/Anti-Money Laundering (“BSA/AML”) examination manual that incorporate and clarify the CDD Requirements and Beneficial Ownership Rule.  The FFIEC is an interagency body that is “empowered to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and report forms for the federal examination of financial institutions.”  The FFIEC examination manual drives the principles and obligations of covered financial instructions in creating BSA/AML compliance programs.  The new updates further clarify the FinCEN rules and solidify CDD as the fifth pillar of the BSA/AML compliance regime.

As we previously blogged here, when FinCEN announced its final rule on CDD requirements it established two important requirements for covered financial institutions.  First, the covered financial institutions were required to establish procedures to identify and verify the beneficial owners of all legal entity customers. Second, the rule required covered financial institutions to adopt ongoing risk-based CDD procedures as part of their AML compliance programs – including developing and updating customer risk profiles and conducting ongoing AML monitoring.  We previously provided practical guidance to aid covered financial institutions in preparing for implementation of these two requirements.  Now we will highlight the key considerations of FFIEC examination manual addressing these topics.  Of particular interest, the new FFIEC examination manual provisions state in part that regulatory examiners are not supposed to engage in second-guessing specific decisions; rather, during an examination “the bank should not be criticized for individual customer decisions unless it impacts the effectiveness of the overall CDD program, or is accompanied to evidence of bad faith or other aggravating factors.”…
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Relief is Narrow, but FinCEN’s Explanation of Low Money Laundering Risk Posed by Lending Products is Instructive

On May 11, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued a ruling to provide exceptive relief from the application of the new Beneficial Ownership rule (the “BO Rule,” about which we repeatedly have blogged: see here, here and here) to premium finance lending products that allow for cash refunds.

Very generally, the BO Rule — effective as of May 11, 2018 — requires covered financial institutions to identify and verify the identity of the beneficial owner of legal entity customers at account opening. One exemption provided by the BO Rule from its requirements is when a legal entity customer opens a new account for the purpose of financing insurance premiums and the payments are remitted directly by the financial institution to the insurance provider or broker.  However, this exemption does not apply when there is a possibility of cash refunds.

In its May 11th ruling, FinCEN granted exceptive relief from the BO Rule to premium finance lenders whose payments are remitted directly to the insurance provider or broker, even if the lending involves the potential for a cash refund.  Although this exception is narrow when compared to the many other financial institutions covered by the broad BO Rule, FinCEN’s explanation for why the excepted entities present a low risk for money laundering is potentially instructive in other contexts, such as risk assessments undertaken by financial institutions for the purposes of their anti-money laundering (“AML”) compliance programs.…
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But Passage of Pending U.S. AML Reform May Reduce Perceived Deficiencies in Beneficial Owner Identification

Last week, Transparency International (“TI”) released an updated assessment of the “beneficial ownership legal frameworks” in the G20 countries, entitled “G20 Leaders or Laggers?”  Since TI’s 2015 assessment of this same issue, the international anti-corruption organization found that “progress across the board has been slow.”  The 2018 Report lauds France, Germany and Italy for making “noticeable improvements since 2015.”  Other countries made more modest upgrades during that time period, including the United States, whose beneficial ownership transparency framework assessment rose from “Weak” in 2015 to “Average” in the 2018 Report.

This post begins with a few observations regarding TI’s methodology in composing the 2018 Report. The post then reviews certain of the areas where TI found the United States lacking as compared to its G20 peers, and examines whether Congress’ recent draft bill, the Counter Terrorism and Illicit Finance Act (“CTIFA”), about which we blogged in a January 2018 two-part series (here and here), may address these identified deficiencies.…
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May 11, 2018 Implementation Deadline Looms

Last year, we posted FinCEN’s Beneficial Ownership Rule: A Practical Guide to Being Prepared for Implementation regarding the Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions Rule (the “Beneficial Ownership Rule” or “Rule”) issued by the Financial Crime Enforcement Center (“FinCEN”). With the Rule’s May 11 implementation date only a few weeks away, and with FinCEN recently having published its new and long-awaited FAQs regarding the Rule (FAQs), we thought that the time was right for more practical tips and answers to questions surrounding the Rule.…
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Yesterday, the SEC Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) announced its 2018 examination priorities, released in order to “improve compliance, prevent fraud, monitor risk, and inform policy.”  OCIE announced five priorities, with Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) programs being one of them.  This emphasis on AML is consistent with the SEC’s increasing willingness to bring enforcement actions relating to AML and the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”).  As we also discuss, here and in our sister blog, CyberAdviser, another priority announced by OCIE is cybersecurity, an issue which increasingly overlaps with AML issues.…
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This week, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held hearings focused in part on Anti-Money Laundering  (“AML”) and the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”).  We discuss highlights of the testimony of the Chairpersons of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), as well as testimony from a senior official at the Justice Department and a representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, concerning upcoming changes to beneficial ownership requirements and the current regulatory landscape of the cryptocurrency industry.…
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Congress is considering a new draft bill, the Counter Terrorism and Illicit Finance Act (“CTIFA”), currently in committee in the Senate.  The CTIFA proposes the most substantial overhaul to the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) since the PATRIOT Act.

This post is the first entry in a two-post series discussing the CTIFA. Here, we summarize recent Senate hearings on the bill and AML reform, which suggest that the CTIFA enjoys political momentum. We also discuss what is arguably the most dramatic change proposed by the CTIFA: requiring legal entities to submit to FinCEN of a list their beneficial owners (“BOs”) – a requirement backed up by civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance — and the creation of a directory of these BOs, which would be accessible to local and international law enforcement and financial institutions. This proposal in part seeks to ease the burdens faced by financial institutions in complying with FinCEN’s Customer Due Diligence (“CDD”) regulation, which takes effect on May 11, 2018 and requires financial institutions to determine BO for legal entities.

In our next post, we will discuss CTIFA’s many other proposed revisions to the BSA. These include: expanding the scope of voluntary information sharing among financial institutions; raising the minimum monetary thresholds for filing Currency Transaction Reports (“CTRs”) and Suspicious Activity Reports (“SARs”); expanding the prohibition against disclosing SAR-related information to third parties, including in private litigation; codifying absolute immunity for SAR filing; allowing FinCEN to issue no-action letters; creating a safe harbor for AML-related technological innovation; requiring a review of whether FinCEN should assume a greater role in AML/BSA exams of financial institutions; and requiring an annual report regarding the usefulness of BSA reporting to law enforcement.…
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Last week, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) released its semiannual risk report (“Report”) highlighting credit, operational, and compliance risks to the federal banking system.  The Report focuses on issues that pose threats to those financial institutions regulated by the OCC and is intended to be used as a resource to by those financial institutions to address the key concerns identified by the OCC.  Specifically, the OCC places cybersecurity and Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) among the top concerns highlighted in the Report.  The Report further observes that the total number of enforcement actions by the OCC against banks — instituted for any kind of alleged violations — have declined steadily after peaking in 2009.…
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PANA Issues Recommendations to European Parliament: Tougher Enforcement, Greater Transparency, Improved Information Sharing and Prohibitions Against Outsourcing of Customer Due Diligence

In the wake of the Panama Papers, the European Parliament (“EP”) formed PANA, a Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance, and Tax Evasion. We previously wrote about PANA in May when it was examining the role of lawyers in money laundering and tax evasion schemes. After opening their October 19 meeting with a moment of silence to honor the life of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Coruana Galizia, who recently was killed by a car bomb, PANA approved a draft report and recommendations for review by the EP. The findings and recommendations range from reporting standardization to outsourcing to illicit real estate transactions to attorney-client privilege.

European parliament in Brussels, Belgium.

A few themes emerged from the PANA report:

  • the European Union (“EU”) has strong law, but lacks vigorous enforcement;
  • the EU’s many regulators are stymied by a severe lack of communication, both within nations and between countries;
  • beneficial owners (“BOs”) are mostly unknown because regulated entities are not fulfilling their reporting obligations and the BO register is not robust, accessible, or standardized;
  • intermediaries, like banks, lawyers, accountants, wealth managers, and other financial institutions, are not living up to their obligations because they are engaging in “creative compliance” and leaving compliance responsibility to third parties.

Based on these findings, PANA recommends:

  • uniform definitions and punishments for money laundering and tax-related infractions,
  • “automatic exchange of information,” reciprocity, and “Common Reporting Standards” between regulators to facilitate better information sharing,
  • the creation of a “publically accessible,” standardized BO register that includes the ultimate beneficial owner (“UBO”),
  • the EP pass legislation to “make it illegal to outsource [customer due diligence (“CDD”)] procedures to third parties,”
  • adoption of stronger forfeiture laws that allow cross-border confiscation of illegally obtained assets,
  • stronger sanctions against banks and other intermediaries that “are knowingly, willfully, and systematically implicated in illegal tax schemes,”
  • lawyers should no longer be able to hide behind the attorney-client privilege to escape reporting requirements, like suspicious transaction reports (“STRs”),
  • countries devote more resources to fighting money laundering and tax evasion,
  • the EP vest more oversight powers in PANA.

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