News
Treasury Official Says Not All Money Transmitters Deserve High Risk Ranking
By Kira Zalan and Colby Adams
printU.S. authorities will clarify in pending guidance that not all remittance companies are susceptible to illicit financial activity, a government official said Wednesday. In an online statement, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing Daniel Glaser said that financial institutions should not treat all money transmitters as high-risk and could mitigate their exposure to potential regulatory enforcement actions with sufficient controls. U.S. officials also plan to revise their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing expectations for money transmitters, improve their oversight of the industry and "continue ongoing outreach to financial institutions and the customers they serve," said Glaser. As part of those...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
U.S. bank restrictions have exacerbated the troubles of Somali money services businesses to the point that companies and individuals alike are resorting to complex workarounds to send money to the East African nation.
Failing to find conventional financial services, some money services businesses have asked armored car companies to bank on their behalf without the knowledge of the institutions maintaining the accounts, say consultants.
One of the world's largest money services businesses will pay nearly $10 million and share transactional data with U.S. states and Mexico as part of an extension to a 2010 settlement.
Looking for entrée into a financial market that has been reluctant to bank them, multiple Argentine money services businesses have applied for American accounts under false pretenses, say industry advisors.
The annual number of suspicious activity reports filed by money services businesses fell by 14 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a report Wednesday.
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.
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.
A new U.S. Treasury Department plan to shift all regulatory reporting to electronic media will push some small money remitters along the U.S.-Mexico border to join the computer age, perhaps reluctantly.
Western Union will pay $94 million to resolve claims by the Arizona Attorney General's office that the company wasn't doing enough to combat Mexican money launderers and human traffickers.
A lack of clear regulatory oversight of how money services businesses and casinos comply with economic sanctions has left a gap in U.S. financial crime controls, say former IRS agents.
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.
Money services business advocates have been lobbying for state and federal regulators to give guidance on how to deal with unlicensed currency transmitters in Brazil, an effort they say is now paying off.
The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said in June 2007 that it was working with Internal Revenue Service and state regulators to produce an anti-money laundering exam manual for MSBs.
Federal regulators should take a greater role in overseeing anti-money laundering compliance among money remittance companies, industry representatives told a congressional panel investigating pricing transparency in the industry.