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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.
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.
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.
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.
Leaders 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.
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.
Mexico City prosecutors accused the former head of the nation's anti-money laundering office of extortion, French lawmakers are demanding that France put Bermuda back on the nation's list of tax havens, and more, in this week's roundup.
A number of marijuana dispensaries are attempting to convert their profits into securities and other investments to hedge against the threat of having their bank accounts frozen and subjected to federal asset forfeiture proceedings, say sources.
Tasked to consider whether it can offer regulatory relief to the medical marijuana industry, the U.S. Treasury Department may have few options to persuade reluctant financial institutions to bank state-approved dispensaries.
A proposed Uruguayan law that would permit and regulate recreational marijuana use poses serious legal and regulatory questions for American banks doing business in the region, according to compliance officers and former U.S. attorneys.
Banks that maintain accounts for state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries will not be the targets of federal prosecutions, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.
Legislation introduced Wednesday to facilitate access of state-licensed marijuana vendors to banking services would strike down some federal reporting obligations placed on U.S. financial institutions.
