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OCC Wants Greater Data-Sharing Protections for Banks, Says Comptroller

By Brian Orsak and Colby Adams

Lawmakers should expand financial safe harbor protections to allow banks to better share their suspicions about money laundering and its predicate crimes, a top U.S. regulatory official said Sunday. Officials at the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have recommended amending the Patriot Act's Sec. 314 to extend its interbank data-sharing program to dozens of specified unlawful activities (SUAs), the agency's head, Thomas Curry, said in a speech. The law's Sec. 314 (b) currently grants safe harbor to banks only when they share information on suspected money laundering and terrorist financing. The agency is lobbying...

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