Do you have a section on Section 311 of the Patriot Act in your BSA Policy? An Examiner told us we had to have this...

Most banks do, as it is a question in the FINCEN examination procedures in the manual, however there are no current special measures enforce.

See page 42 of the Core Examination procedures.

Hi Randy, would you mind expanding on your comment "there are no current special measures enforce".

There are special measures listed under 31 CFR 1010.651-655 so are you pointing out there's been none recently issued?

I just didn't want to miss something ~ thanks!

Well, maybe I should have said unless you are heavily into foreign correspondent banking, it is not something you have to worry about.

That helps alot! Thanks!

I had an auditor recommend that I put procedures in place to screen wire transfers for the Section 311 list. We do international wires, but we do not do foreign correspondent banking. How can the special measures be implemented on wire transfers?

Well, when an auditor makes such a suggestion, I usually present that question to them

If you send/receive international wires then you should have a 311 policy in your program and business unit specific procedures for how you're going to monitor for compliance.

I.e., our institution does a one time retroactive scrub for any newly added entities to the list and if we find customers have engaged with entities or financial institutions of a primary money laundering concern we initiate an AML investigation, which may or may not result in a SAR.

If it fits into your risk profile you could purchase a 311 list and implement it into your transaction monitoring to capture and flag/alert any transactions to/from these jurisdictions (on the back end). It wouldn't surprise me if there is a vendor that could load the same list into your wire room software.

Since no notification is given when a country is added to Section 311, how often do you look, daily, monthly, quarterly? Did I mis understand when someone indicated they buy the 311 list? Our examiner thinks our vendor who runs OFAC/FinCEN for us probably does this but........they aren't returning my calls.

You can check the list at this web-site:

http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/section311.html

In addition, over on the right-hand side towards the bottom of the list, you can be notified of FinCEN updates. When you get the subscription list, the 311 notifications will be one of the items you can select. This way you will be notified when the 311 is updated in any way.

I have been told that we need to check all new customers and non customers against the Section 311 special measures list, and that we need to do procedures as well, can anyone share these items.

If your vendor offers it, subscribe to a 311 list and use it the same way you use the OFAC list when screening wires; scan parties, scan banks, scan additional instructions.

Told by whom and ask them why??

311 Special Measures deal with Jurisdictions and Financial Institutions - there are no individuals involved in the 311 program. Tell them to try again, unless you are opening accounts for international governments and financial institutions.

Ed - I guess I am a little dense. The link represents?

The 311 listing for Liberty Reserves.

Yes, but how does that relate to anything else posted in the thread - or have I missed something?

It wouldn't require a bank to be 'heavily into foreign correspondent banking' to have been approached to open an account for libertyreserve.com.

They are still a financial institution and checking every new account opened against a list is not a requirement and a waste of time.

As you wish.

The Federal Reserve, I had a comment on the audit that we needed to do this.

It's tempting to suggest "Scan and be done with it. It requires less time and effort than explaining why you didn't scan."