The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has hit Amcore Financial Inc. with a cease-and-desist order requiring the Rockford, Ill., company to strengthen its Bank Secrecy Act compliance.
Kenneth E. Edge, the $5.4 billion-asset Amcore's president and chief executive officer, said in an interview Friday the OCC approached his company about the issue late last year. Though regulators did not find widespread problems, they concluded Amcore needed to upgrade its efforts to identify activity that posed a higher BSA compliance risk, he said.
"We had the people, but we didn't have the experience," Mr. Edge said. "It was a quality issue."
This year Amcore has added a general counsel and six compliance officers, he said.
Under the order, dated Aug. 10 but made public Thursday, Amcore will appoint a compliance committee, establish procedures for identifying transactions that pose higher-than-normal compliance risk, and adopt an internal audit program.
Amcore did not admit or deny any wrongdoing in the agreement, and it was not forced to pay monetary penalties. However, the OCC has designated it an institution in "troubled condition."
