FinCEN

Amid the clamor over the agency's new beneficial ownership database, banks want FinCEN to withdraw the rule.

Authorities gained from Russian sanctions legislation helped law enforcement build the case against Hong Kong-based exchange.

Rules being considered by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network would needlessly hinder banks seeking to do due diligence on their customers.

The acting director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Himmamauli Das, said the so-called access rule of the Corporate Transparency Act will be released by the end of the year.

While the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has finalized some Corporate Transparency Act rules, the timetable is unclear for regulations involving customer due diligence or database access for banks.

Acting Director Himamauli Das acknowledged concerns from Democratic lawmakers that Fincen was moving too slowly to implement beneficial ownership rules but said the agency "will likely continue to do so, because our budget situation has required us to make significant trade-offs among competing priorities.”

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed standards to determine which companies must report their beneficial owners under a law enacted in January. Banks hope the new requirements will free them of the burden of collecting true-owner information about their customers.

Prosecutors say Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards leaked over 50,000 documents, including 2,000 suspicious activity reports, related to payments involving former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign chairman.

The Treasury secretary previewed President Biden's budget by urging lawmakers to fund the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's establishment of a beneficial ownership regime.

As Fincen implements an anti-money-laundering law requiring businesses to add their beneficial owners to a new database, bankers worry they'll still be on the hook to provide that information on behalf of customers for some time.

The McLean, Va.-based company admitted that it failed to file suspicious activity reports even in cases when it knew about criminal charges against specific customers. The misconduct took place in a unit that served check-cashing businesses and was later shut down.

Several government agencies have made deeper moves into crypto oversight, leaving a trail of angry executives and unresolved political questions. And there's still no sign of a central bank digital currency, leaving the U.S. at risk of falling behind other countries in the race to support faster payment processing.

An impasse over pandemic relief checks for Americans is holding up an override of President Trump's veto of a bill shifting beneficial-owner requirements from banks to their commercial clients.

Congress’s passage of a measure requiring startup companies — instead of their banks — to identify true owners was arguably the industry’s biggest legislative achievement in 2020. Now the industry is urging lawmakers to revisit proposals that would ease other anti-money-laundering reporting requirements.

The agency said it may exempt certain institutions from having to file suspicious activity reports if they have “innovative solutions intended to meet Bank Secrecy Act requirements more efficiently and effectively." But in those circumstances, law enforcement may still require SARs.

The defense spending bill includes language requiring businesses to report their owners to Fincen.

Banks are responsible for reporting their business customers' beneficial owners, but a bill that would shift that anti-money-laundering duty to businesses themselves has been added to a must-pass defense spending package.

Big financial institutions are worried that online wagers made with credit cards pose a heavy risk of money laundering. The possibility of tougher rules under the incoming Biden administration has only compounded their concerns.

The two agencies proposed amending the Bank Secrecy Act to lower the threshold for transfers occurring outside the U.S. that trigger recordkeeping requirements.

Better dialogue between banks and authorities coupled with stronger anti-money-laundering measures could help address the suspicious activity report flaws revealed by investigative journalists.