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Lawmakers Pen Sharp Critique of FinCEN’s Marijuana Guidance
printLeaders of the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control sharply criticized the head of the nation's financial intelligence unit for issuing guidance on how banks can treat marijuana dispensaries. In a letter, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) criticized Feb. 14 guidance by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that outlined how banks can distinguish transactions related to dispensaries complying with state rules from transactions likely linked to drug traffickers violating state and federal laws alike. But the guidance, along with a U.S. Justice Department memorandum issued on the same day, gives tacit approval to the businesses,...
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The U.S. Justice Department's plan to pursue harsher sentences against drug traffickers and other narcotics-related activity should prompt financial institutions to reassess the risks posed by providing services to state-authorized cannabis businesses, say sources.
Brokerages, investors and banks are executing trades of dozens of marijuana firms listed on federally-supervised stock exchanges despite a dearth of official guidance on whether the transactions violate U.S. rules against money laundering.
U.S. broker-dealers are far more likely than depository institutions to take on state-sanctioned cannabis firms as clients, according to Alison Jimenez, president of Florida-based consultancy Dynamic Securities Analytics, Inc.
U.S. officials are drafting guidance for financial institutions concerned that accepting deposits from third-party companies serving state-licensed marijuana vendors may violate federal rules against money laundering, say sources.
This time last December, one might reasonably have expected that 2014 would be a year of modest changes for the anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance sector. Then came JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas and a convoy of Russian tanks to quash that notion.
Colorado's booming cannabis sector may be a boon for the state's coffers but it is proving to be a headache for banks, even when they don't maintain accounts for dispensaries.
A little-noticed amendment to a U.S. appropriations bill could do what lawmakers and lobbying groups alike have failed to do: ensure that banks don't pay for taking on state-licensed cannabis companies.
House lawmakers are asking the nation's financial intelligence unit to reform how it screens job applicants following reports that the bureau's recent hiring campaign may have violated federal standards.
Efforts to ramp up the U.S. financial intelligence unit's enforcement of the Bank Secrecy Act have run into a longstanding hurdle: the bureau's reliance on financial regulators for case leads.
The U.S. Treasury Department will soon tweak a regulatory proposal that would require financial institutions to report wire transfers to and from the United States, an official said Monday.
Even after the expected signing of a Colorado state measure clearing the way for marijuana dispensaries to bank themselves, the companies will face a long slog to acceptance by financial institutions.
The nation's financial intelligence unit will weigh whether additional guidance is needed on how banks should treat clients tangentially or directly associated with state-sanctioned marijuana dispensaries, according to sources.
Drug interdictions, illicit money seizures and suspicious bank wires related to Colorado are all on the rise since the state legalized the recreational use of marijuana, according to U.S. officials.
At the same time that the nation's financial intelligence unit is readying unprecedented fines against compliance officers, the agency is facing stark questions about its enforcement efforts, including its hiring practices.
When FinCEN restructured its reporting hierarchy, the bureau signaled a subtle but important shift for banks: some of the energy it had once spent toward improving compliance would now serve to penalize regulatory violators, says former Assistant Director for the Office of Compliance Tom Fleming.
Looking at two guidance pieces from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) you get a quick lesson in how difficult it can be to regulate issues that society -let alone state and federal government- hasn't reached a consensus on.
As federal and state officials continue down the road toward relaxing cannabis restrictions, banks have questions beyond simply whether they can accept marijuana dispensaries as clients. They wonder whether less direct financial ties to the businesses could be cause for concern too.
Banks can choose whether to keep accounts for certain marijuana dispensaries and report limited information to federal officials when the businesses are unlikely targets of prosecutors, the U.S. Treasury Department said Friday.