Bank Secrecy Act

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Our podcast listeners are very familiar with federal fair lending and anti-discrimination laws that apply in the consumer lending area: the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and Fair Housing Act (FHA). Those statutes prohibit discriminating against certain protected classes of consumer credit applicants. For example, the ECOA makes it unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract); the applicant’s use of a public assistance program to receive all or part of their income; or the applicant’s previous good-faith exercise of any right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act.… Continue Reading

After reviewing how the AMLA expands the BSA’s goals, we look at which AMLA provisions have the most impact on BSA compliance, including the AMLA’s emphasis on information sharing, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s “national priorities” and the value of threat pattern and trend information to bank compliance efforts, and the AMLA’s expansion of the U.S.… Continue Reading

The Federal Banking Agencies (“FBAs”) — collectively the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”); the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (“Federal Reserve”); the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”); and the National Credit Union Administration (“NCUA”) — just issued with the concurrence of FinCEN an Order granting an exemption from the requirements of the customer identification program (“CIP”) rules imposed by the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) under 31 U.S.C.… Continue Reading

A portion of the Treasury’s report entitled “A Financial System That Creates Economic Opportunities, Nonbank Financials, Fintech, and Innovation,” focuses on payments.  (See our legal alert for a discussion of other portions of the Treasury’s report.)

Current payment methods.  The report notes four primary core payment systems: credit cards, debit cards, automated clearing house (ACH) transfers, and wire transfers. … Continue Reading

Last week, the OCC released its semiannual risk 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 by those financial institutions to address the key concerns identified by the OCC. … Continue Reading

As we reported in an earlier posting, it has taken considerable effort to locate the memoranda of understanding (MOUs) that the CFPB has put in place with various other federal agencies. More of those MOUs recently surfaced through, we believe, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. One of the newly uncovered MOUs is between CFPB and FinCEN and gives the CFPB direct electronic access to Bank Secrecy Act information collected in FinCEN’s Currency and Banking Retrieval System.… Continue Reading