FinCEN Director Kenneth A. Blanco delivered prepared remarks on August 13 at the 12th Annual Las Vegas Anti-Money Laundering Conference. We previously have blogged repeatedly on the anti-money laundering (“AML”) and Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) challenges facing the gaming industry. This post will discuss Director Blanco’s comments at a high level only, consistent with the generality of his prepared speech.
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Federal Reserve and FinCEN Raise Alarms Regarding Technology-Assisted Financial Fraud
The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, both recently issued reports addressing worrisome trends in technology-assisted financial fraud. The reports seek to engage the financial services industry in partnering more closely to reduce associated losses.
Specifically, the Federal Reserve issued a report entitled Synthetic Identity Fraud in the U.S. Payment System. FinCEN issued a report entitled Manufacturing and Construction Top Targets for Business Email Compromise. Collectively, the reports reflect how techonology-driven fraud and identity theft schemes can target financial institutions, businesses and consumers alike, thereby impacting the Anti-Money Laundering and related anti-fraud programs of the financial institutions implicated by such schemes.
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Joint Statement Issued by Federal Banking Agencies Highlights Importance of Banks’ Risk-Assessments
On July 22, 2019, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) (collectively the federal banking agencies), issued a joint statement entitled Joint Statement on Risk-Focused Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (the “statement”).
The specific emphasis of the statement is to reiterate that the federal agencies will take a risk-focused approach to examinations. The statement itself does not purport to create new requirements but rather is a tool to enhance transparency in the approach used by the federal banking agencies in planning and performing BSA/AML examinations. As the statement notes, it “aligns with the federal banking agencies’ long-standing practices for risk-focused safety and soundness examinations.”
Risk Profiles
At the outset, the federal banking agencies urge banks to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment, which are deemed “a critical part of sound risk management.” Specifically, banks themselves have unique risk profiles given each bank’s focus (i.e., “a bank with a localized community focus likely has a stable, known customer base”) and complexity, which must be assessed at the outset when developing and implementing an adequate BSA/AML program.
Of particular note, the federal banking agencies state that banks that “operate in compliance with applicable law, properly manage customer relationships and effectively mitigate risk by implementing controls commensurate with those risk are neither prohibited nor discouraged from providing banking services.” The statement goes on to assert that “banks are encouraged to manage customer relationships and mitigate risks based on customer relationships rather than declining to provide banking services to entire categories of customers.”
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OFAC’s Revised Reporting Rules Create New Compliance Requirements for All U.S. Persons
Foreign Banks Reliant on U.S. Correspondent Services Should Take Note of New Rules
We are pleased to present this guest blog by Hdeel Abdelhady, who is a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and Principal at MassPoint Legal and Strategy Advisory PLLC, her boutique law and strategy firm. Ms. Abdelhady focuses on regulatory compliance and transactional matters, including cross-border trade and finance transactions and regulation.
As Ms. Abdelhady discusses, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued on June 21, 2019 an interim final rule (the “IFR”) amending provisions of the Reporting, Procedures, and Penalties Regulations applicable to OFAC-administered sanctions programs at 31 C.F.R. Part 501. The IFR became effective upon publication in the Federal Register on June 21. OFAC has requested public comments, which are due by July 22, 2019. The IFR has many important potential consequences, including for foreign banks that rely on U.S. correspondent banking services, as well as U.S. financial institutions facing additional compliance burdens.
As legal counsel to U.S. and foreign banks, other financial services providers, and businesses, Ms. Abdelhady has advised on sanctions, anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, and counter-terrorism finance regulation and compliance under U.S. law and international standards, including the FATF Recommendations and Wolfsberg Standards. She has served as in-house counsel on secondment to banks in the United States and abroad, including in connection with the first major USA Patriot Act enforcement by the Comptroller of the Currency and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). In addition, Ms. Abdelhady has advised on the establishment of money services businesses and Foreign Banking Organizations in the United States.
Ms. Abdelhady serves on the board of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists (ACFCS), is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and is an Adjunct Professor at The George Washington University Law School. Ms. Abdelhady writes frequently on banking, finance, and regulatory compliance matters. Among other publications, Reuters, the World Bank Legal Review, and Law360 has published her work. We hope that you enjoy this discussion by Ms. Abdelhady of this important development. –Peter Hardy
In addition to effectuating technical and conforming amendments, the IFR revises Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA) penalties and amends reporting requirements and procedures applicable to initial and annual blocked property reports, unblocked property reports, and the unblocking of funds due to mistaken identity. Additionally, the IFR revises reporting requirements applicable to “rejected transactions.” The rejected transactions amendment is the most substantial of the revisions, and is the focus of this update.
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FinCEN’s Evolving Approach to Lurking Threats in Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing: Director Blanco’s Remarks at NYU Law
On June 12, 2019, Kenneth A. Blanco, Director of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), provided remarks at the NYU Law Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement that underscored the agency’s evolving approach to emerging threats in money laundering and terrorist financing.
His remarks specifically focused on:
- FinCEN’s approach to addressing a number of emerging money-laundering threats, including the crisis in Venezuela and the rise in business email compromise (“BEC”) fraud schemes;
- The agency’s collaboration with Congress to address the need to collect beneficial ownership information at a company’s formation; and
- FinCEN’s ongoing efforts to strengthen and modernize the anti-money laundering (“AML”) and counter terrorism financing (“CFT”) system.
Lawmakers Renew Effort to Overhaul AML Laws, Including Greater Beneficial Ownership Transparency
The Issue of Who Truly Runs and Owns Entities Contines to Gnaw at Congress and Law Enforcement
First Post in a Two-Post Series on the ILLICIT CASH Act
On June 10, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Senate released a discussion draft of legislation proposing to overhaul the nation’s anti-money laundering (“AML”) laws. The discussion draft, titled The Improving Laundering Laws and Increasing Comprehensive Information Tracking of Criminal Activity in Shell Holdings (ILLICIT CASH) Act (“the Act”), is very detailed and sets forth many proposed changes to the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) over the course of 102 pages.
In this post, we will focus on a key provision of the Act, which sets forth a version of the now-familiar requirement aimed directly at tracking the beneficial ownership (“BO”) of U.S. entities. In our next post on the Act, we will summarize its many other provisions.
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New FinCEN Cryptocurrency Guidance Provides Comprehensive Overview of BSA Application to Crypto Businesses
Second Post in a Two-Part Series
Some Answers — Producing Even More Questions
On May 9, 2019, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) published a comprehensive “interpretive guidance” (the “Guidance”) to “remind” businesses and individuals operating in a subset of the cryptocurrency markets involving “convertible virtual currencies” (“CVCs”) of the potential applicability of the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) to their operations. At the outset, FinCEN explains that “[t]his guidance does not establish any new regulatory expectations or requirements.” Instead, “it consolidates current FinCEN regulations, and related administrative rulings and guidance issued since 2011” and provides illustrations of those regulations, rulings and guidance to common business models involving CVCs.
The principal purposes of the Guidance are threefold: (1) to set forth relevant FinCEN rules and requirements in a single source; (2) to demonstrate how the BSA may and does apply to innovations in the CVC markets occurring since 2011; and (3) to illustrate how these rules and requirements will be applied to future innovations in the CVC markets.
In our first post in this series, posted on the day that FinCEN issued the Guidance, we addressed recent major developments across a spectrum of regulatory, civil, and criminal enforcement cases involving cryptocurrencies, AML and money laundering – courtesy of the combined efforts of FinCEN, the New York Department of Financial Services, and the U.S. Department of Justice. These enforcement cases underscored the need for more clear rules regarding how the BSA and other statutes can apply to cryptocurrencies. The Guidance attempts to do just that, with partial success. It presents as a treatise on FinCEN regulation of CVCs, organized to:
- provide definitions of key relevant concepts;
- outline and explain current FinCEN regulations, ruling and guidance;
- summarize the development and content of FinCEN’s money transmission regulations to CVCs and CVC businesses;
- provide illustrations of “FinCEN’s existing regulatory approach to current and emerging business models using patterns of activities involving CVC”; and
- localize resources to further explain applicable FinCEN rules and regulations.
The Guidance, although not exactly offering anything new, still contains a lot to unpack. It provides some significant clarity to application of FinCEN’s rules and regulations to CVC businesses and a thorough resource to address many questions involving FinCEN regulation of CVC. But, at the same time, and somewhat paradoxically, in its comprehensiveness, it reveals how almost limitless possibilities exist for individuals and entities to transact in CVC and how difficult questions of whether those activities will be regulated by FinCEN can be to answer.
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Senate Committee Hears from OCC, FinCEN and FBI on Risks Posed by Anonymous Corporate Structures
Testimony Supports Bill Requiring States to Collect Beneficial Ownership Information at Entity Formation
As we have blogged, the proposed Corporate Transparency Act of 2019 (the “Act”) seeks to ensure that persons who form legal entities in the U.S. disclose the beneficial owners of those entities. Specifically, the Act would amend the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) to compel the Secretary of Treasury to set minimum standards for state incorporation practices. Thus, applicants forming a corporation or LLC would be required to report beneficial ownership information directly to FinCEN, and to continuously update such information.
If passed, the Act would build significantly upon FinCEN’s May 11, 2018 regulation regarding beneficial ownership (“the BO Rule,” about which we blog frequently and have provided practical tips for compliance here and here). Very generally, the BO Rule requires covered financial institutions to identify and verify the identities of the beneficial owners of legal entity customers at account opening. The issue of beneficial ownership is at the heart of current global anti-money laundering efforts to enhance the transparency of financial transactions.
On May 21, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, held a hearing entitled: “Combating Illicit Financing by Anonymous Shell Companies Through the Collection of Beneficial Ownership Information.” This hearing, which provided fuel for passage of the Act, featured the exact same trio of speakers who had appeared before the Committee during a November 2018 hearing on “Combating Money Laundering and Other Forms of Illicit Finance: Regulator and Law Enforcement Perspectives on Reform,” which pertained to a broader set of potential changes to the BSA. The speakers were:
- Grovetta Gardineer, Senior Deputy Comptroller for Bank Supervision Policy and Community Affairs at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) (written remarks here)
- Kenneth A. Blanco, Director of FinCEN (written remarks here); and
- Steven D’Antuono, Acting Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI (written remarks here).
Unlike the broader November 2018 hearing, which featured some distinct tensions between certain positions of the OCC and those of FinCEN and the FBI, this hearing reflected close alignment amongst the speakers. Every speaker stressed the advantages to be reaped by law enforcement, regulators and the public if a national database of beneficial owners was required and created. Only the OCC acknowledged the need to consider the issue and sometimes competing concern of the regulatory burden imposed on financial institutions by the current BSA/AML regime, and even the OCC seemed to assume that a national database on beneficial ownership would represent only a boon to financial institutions, as opposed to yet more data – however helpful – to be absorbed and acted upon to the satisfaction of regulators. None of the speakers addressed some of the potential ambiguities and problems inherent in the current language of the Act, such as the fact that the Act lacks precision and fails to define the critical terms “exercises substantial control” or “substantial interest,” both of which drive the determination of who represents a beneficial owner.
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FinCEN Dispenses Law Enforcement Awards Based on BSA Reporting
Director Blanco Stresses Importance of BSA Filings to Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions
As we have blogged, Kenneth Blanco, the Director of Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), has publically and repeatedly stressed the value of Suspicious Activity Reports (“SARs”) and other Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) filings in the context of discussing anti-money laundering (“AML”) enforcement — arguably, partly in order to provide a counter-narrative to a reform movement which questions the investigatory utility to governments and the mounting costs to the financial industry of the current BSA reporting regime.
Last week, and consistent with this approach and a general desire to “message” the importance of the BSA, Director Blanco hosted FinCEN’s fifth annual awards ceremony to recognize the efforts of Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies in using the BSA to pursue and prosecute financial crimes.
In his remarks, Blanco credited the BSA for mandating or encouraging information-sharing and reporting, which “provides leads, helps expand cases, identifies networks of criminal and other bad actors, and often helps to alert the regulatory and law enforcement communities to trends in illicit activity, making our communities safer.” Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal P. Mandelker also made remarks, observing that the success stories underlying the awards “make clear that BSA data is critical in the fight against financial crime.”
FinCEN Again Extends Real Estate GTOs
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) has, once again, extended its Geographic Targeting Order (“GTO”) requiring U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind legal entities used in purchases of residential real estate performed without a bank loan or similar form of external financing. Again, the monetary threshold remains at $300,000, and purchases