05/01/2005
Banking regulators issued joint guidance in late April that clarifies requirements on banks for assessing and minimizing risks associated with providing banking services to money services businesse
04/18/2005
Per the BSA, an MSB does not include a bank, nor shall it include a person registered with, and regulated by the SEC or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Does this mean that I do not have to perform any enhanced due diligence on an MSB that is a 34 Act company? By enhanced due diligence, I mean determining whether the business has procedures to comply with applicable BSA requirements, whether the company has proper controls to monitor for suspicious activity and whether the company has procedures to ensure compliance with OFAC regulations
04/01/2005
In a recent decision, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan held that the defendant did not have to know that conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business was illegal i
04/01/2005
01/17/2005
In the answer given by Ryan Rasske on "AML Requirements Upon Identifying an MSB", he stated, "It is up to the bank to conduct the proper due diligence on their MSB customers and ensure they are complying with the law." We are in the process of determining what our responsibility is as a bank to ensure that our customers are complying with the law. What specifically do we need to be doing to be sure that we are using "proper due diligence"?
01/01/2005
Question: We have customers who run a "Mom and Pop" store in a little, southern, rural town. The main street is just two blocks long.
01/01/2005
FinCEN has published a revised form 107 for registration of Money Service Businesses ("MSBs") with FinCEN. The form is dated 12/31/04 and should be used by any MSB registering with FinCEN.
12/06/2004
I know that banking regulations do not allow a bank to cash a check payable to a business. What are the rules and regulations for MSBs? I noticed that there are several check cashers who continually cash checks payable to businesses. Is this allowed?
12/06/2004
Could you expand upon the implications of having cash-intensive retailers (i.e. grocery stores) who are registered with FinCEN as MSBs? It just came to our attention that because they're an MSB they cannot be exempted, nor can we exempt the grocery store portion of their business and continue to file on the MSB portion unless they're operated under separate TINs. If that's the case, a bank would often need to file a daily CTR, further clogging FinCEN's database. This seems like a regulatory policy that's contrary to the intention of the CTR process. Do we really want 260 more CTRs in the system for a legitimate business? Shouldn't the fact that they've registered with FinCEN make them legitimate and exemptable? Am I missing something? What solutions do you see to such a situation? I suspect many banks are struggling with this emerging issue and would welcome your guidance.
12/06/2004
I work for a convience store which is registered as a MSB. Our banker told us we would need to write a policies and procedures. Could you help with a sample or example. Or would you know where I might find one? We currently cash checks and sell money orders.