The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and U.S. banking agencies today released guidance for financial institutions on how to share financial information with their counterparts in other countries without running afoul of the Bank Secrecy Act.
The guidance is meant to encourage “appropriate, voluntary cross-border sharing of information” between financial institutions to help combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit finance activity, according to the document. The guidance seeks to clarify that the BSA generally does not prohibit cross-border information sharing. It also provides examples of information that typically would not reveal the existence of a suspicious activity report and, as a result, is not prohibited from sharing.
“Financial institutions voluntarily sharing information with each other — including, but not limited to, their foreign affiliates and financial institutions to which they offer correspondent banking services — can make the U.S. and global financial systems more resilient by enabling individual financial institutions to form a more complete picture of threats, risks and vulnerabilities posed by money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit finance activity,” according to the guidance.
