Regulators Rework AML Rules to Prioritize Risk-Based Evaluations

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and three federal financial regulators proposed rules Tuesday (April 7) that they said will modernize their anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) rules and allow financial institutions to focus on higher risks.

FinCEN said in a Tuesday press release that its proposed rule, detailed in a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), would “fundamentally reform” financial institutions’ AML/CFT programs under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by reducing the compliance burden and promoting risk-based programs.

“For too long, Washington has asked financial institutions to measure success by the volume of paperwork rather than their ability to stop illicit finance threats,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in the release. “Our proposal restores common sense with a focus on keeping bad actors out of the financial system, not burying America’s banks in more red tape.”

On the same day, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said in a joint release that they issued a proposed rule that would align their AML/CFT rules with those proposed by FinCEN.

FDIC Chairman Travis Hill said in a statement issued Tuesday that the proposed rule would implement reforms that Congress directed FinCEN and the banking agencies to make when it passed the AML Act in 2021.

The AML Act aims to ensure that bank BSA programs focus on high-risk areas that are important to law enforcement and national security agencies, as well as encourage banks to adopt technological innovations to counter money laundering and terrorism financing, Hill said.

Hill said the proposed rule is “perhaps the most important of the reforms Congress envisioned in the AML Act. The proposal embraces a risk-based approach to supervision and would affirmatively encourage banks to allocate resources away from lower risk activities and toward higher risk activities.”

The AML Act built upon the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 to include antiques dealers and virtual currency marketplaces and give law enforcement new tools to crack down on money laundering, PYMNTS reported in its April 2021 AML/KYC Tracker®.