News
FinCEN Query Will Give More Detailed Picture of Diverse MSB Field
By Brian Monroe
printA federal letter asking money services businesses to turn over data on their agents marks the first broad U.S. effort in 14 years to better understand the scope of the fractured money transmitter market. The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said earlier this month that it had asked the businesses, known as MSBs, to report the names and tax identification numbers of their agents, which banks the individuals worked with and instances when their monthly gross transactions exceeded $100,000, among other information. FinCEN's request for data, which MSBs were previously only required to retain, follows similar mandates...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
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.
Last year's failed Times Square car bombing has been the chief impetus behind a recent U.S. Treasury Department's initiative to identify unregistered money services businesses and hawala networks, according to sources.
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.
The number of suspicious activity reports filed by U.S. money services businesses declined by eight percent in 2008, the first drop in such reporting by any financial sector since 1997.
Gauging the vulnerability of money service businesses' agents to being used to launder money or finance terrorism is central to adopting a risk-based approach to compliance, according to a global watchdog report released Monday.
A U.S. Treasury Department proposal that would potentially apply U.S. anti-money laundering regulations to hundreds of thousands of foreign money services businesses would be virtually "unenforceable," according to compliance consultants.
The release of the long anticipated Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering Examination Manual for Money Services Businesses has left many regulators, money services businesses and banks struggling to understand what it means for them. Here are some insights into implementing the manual.
The number of suspicious activity reports filed by money services businesses increased slightly in the first half of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007, according to data provided by the U.S. Treasury Department.
The U.S. Treasury Department may be denying state and federal law enforcement authorities a critical source of information for money laundering and terrorist financing investigations by opting not to forward to money services businesses information requests authorized under the Patriot Act.
The manual, issued by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, will include language from a FinCEN ruling on due diligence for certain correspondent accounts for foreign banks, according to people familiar with the matter.
Several money services businesses have closed since regulators designated them as high-risk for money laundering.
U.S. regulators haven't done enough to help money services businesses repair their relationship with banks, say MSB trade groups, which blame the regulators for much of the damage.