The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network today proposed a new rule to require financial institutions to establish and maintain “effective, risk-based and reasonably designed” anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism programs with certain minimum components, including a mandatory risk assessment process. The proposed rule also would require financial institutions to review government-wide AML/CFT priorities and incorporate them “as appropriate” into risk-based programs, and would make other changes to program requirements, a pillar of banks’ Bank Security Act/AML/CFT compliance.
Earlier in the week, the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, FDIC and National Credit Union Administration previewed a separate proposed rule that would align each agency’s Bank Secrecy Act compliance program requirements with FinCEN’s proposed changes, which are being made to implement provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. Among other things, FinCEN said the proposed rule seeks to avoid “one-size-fits-all approaches to customer risk that can lead to financial institutions declining to provide financial services to entire categories of customers.”
“More than ever, financial institutions are partnering with government to address a range of serious law enforcement and national security issues with illicit financing implications, from fentanyl trafficking to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. “It has been an important priority for Treasury to issue this proposed rule that promotes a more effective and risk-based regulatory and supervisory regime that directs financial institutions to focus their AML/CFT programs on the highest priority threats.”
