As part of an ongoing effort to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering regime, the federal banking agencies and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network today issued a joint statement emphasizing their risk focused approach to BSA/AML examinations.
When conducting examinations of banks’ BSA/AML compliance programs, the agencies reiterated that they take into account banks’ unique risk profiles when conducting examinations. They also emphasized that “banks are encouraged to manage customer relationships and mitigate risks based on customer relationships rather than declining to provide banking services to entire categories of customers.”