In a letter today, the American Bankers Association asked the Financial Action Task Force to extend the comment deadline for a proposed expansion of the standard that governs the type and amount of information that travels with domestic and cross-border wire transactions. FATF in February proposed revising its Recommendation 16 to apply to many more forms of payment and value transfers. ABA said that while it supports the reconsideration, that support comes with caveats: More work is needed to avoid unintended consequences and further G20 objectives to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more transparent while remaining secure.
“ABA is concerned about the broad proposed expansion of R.16 without a fulsome discussion with experts in both the public and private sectors of the illicit finance risk presented by money launderers, criminals and terrorists seeking to misuse different forms of payments and value transfers,” the association said. It requested the comment deadline be extended past May 3.
