WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve Board has proposed changing the format more than 11,000 banks use to wire money.
Last week, the Fed issued for public comment a proposal that expands the Fed Wire Funds Transfer format to provide information about the person originating the transfer and the person it is sent to.
To Track Laundered Funds
The changes would bring the Fed Wire's format in line with new wire transfer rules the Fed and the Department of Treasury proposed this summer to help law enforcement agencies trace laundered money. Those rules require bank and non-bank financial institutions to include additional information about who sends and receives wire transfers, but there are not enough spaces in the Fed Wire form to do so.
Peter G. Djinis, director of the Treasury's Office of Financial Enforcement, said that currently Fed Wire, "does not have the formats for full beneficiary and full originator information. The proposed regulations would work quite comfortably," with the wire transfer regulations.
Backed by ABA
The Fed said the American Bankers Association had urged it to adopt the proposed changes, which would be more compatible with the formats used by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications and the Clearing House Interbank Payments System, known as Chips.
The Fed staff wrote in a memo to the Board that the Chips-like Fed Wire format, "accommodates industry and law-enforcement needs." Banks and other parties will have 90 days to comment.
