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An individually-owned and operated money services business in Michigan will pay $12,000 and cease operations for failing to properly screen thousands of wire transfers to Yemen, U.S. regulators said Friday.
Arizona has granted the nation's largest money transmitter an additional three months to improve its anti-money laundering compliance program and avoid criminal prosecution.
One of the country's top lobbying groups for money services businesses will ask lawmakers in February to streamline how the companies obtain licenses to operate in the United States.
The terms of a $100 million settlement disclosed Friday by MoneyGram for anti-money laundering lapses will cost the Dallas-based money remitter nearly $200 million once completed, regulatory documents show.
A 2008 investigation of Colombian cash couriers by customs officials and the U.S. Justice Department that made headlines for its ties to European cocaine sales had a lesser known result: Bank Secrecy Act regulations.
An agreement by one the nation's largest money transmitters to better share transactional data with investigators has resulted in greater scrutiny, both for the business and its chief competitor.
Dozens of small banks and credit unions have begun courting money services businesses over the past year, offering financial services to the high-risk clients in exchange for compliance-related fees.
Money services businesses have been slow to respond to an April request by the U.S. Treasury Department to provide more data on their individual agents, say compliance professionals.
The U.S. Treasury Department is in the final stages of levying a $12,000 civil money penalty against a New Jersey-based money remitter for failing to register as a money services business.
A U.S. Treasury Department plan to increase reporting on cross-border transactions would allow federal regulators and investigators to more easily detect unregistered money remitters - if they can sift through the data.
The Internal Revenue Service's anti-money laundering division is in the process of revamping how it examines tens of thousands of money services businesses, according to a former U.S. Treasury Department official.
Money services businesses and sellers of stored value cards will know this summer whether final rules by the U.S. Treasury Department will increase their anti-money laundering compliance duties and costs.
Money services businesses do not need to keep separate bank accounts for their different business lines to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, according to a U.S. Treasury Department ruling.
Clearing brokers are exempt from customer identification requirements when the customer is approved by an introducing broker, according to FinCEN guidance.
The processing of checks and drafts from foreign institutions does not by itself constitute a correspondent relationship, FinCEN said in the guidance.
The U.S. Treasury Department issued guidance on the obligations of casinos under the Bank Secrecy Act, including procedures for filing currency transaction reports when the business lacks complete information on customers.
Executing dealers that conduct transactions for prime brokerage clients in over-the-counter foreign exchange and derivatives markets are not required to apply federal due diligence rules for correspondent accounts to those relationships, FinCEN said in Guidance issued Wednesday.
The addition is part of a U.S. Treasury Department initiative announced June 22 by Secretary Henry Paulson to reduce the BSA-related burden on financial institutions.
A financial institution should ask for a written request from any law enforcement agency that asks it to keep an account open, according to the U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
The agency reported that 34,214 money services businesses were registered as of Dec. 6.
