How many thought that FINCEN would really stick to the schedule for the Requests for Information under the 314(a)?
Ha - Not to be ....

Your dreams will come true tomorrow!

I haven't had anything today. So tomorrow would be the 2 week interval.

We got requests today.

I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow.

I feel so very special....

I spoke too soon. It was in my bank e-mail at 7:17 pm yesterday.

My "request" form states to reply no later than 3/6/03! Two days to respond - apparently FinCEN does not realize some bank's records, have to be researched manually. I don't see how 2 days can be considered a "reasonable" time for searching, even if fully automated.

I knew that the two week turn around time was too good to be true. I guess the only consolation is that we have a week and half break before we get the next one...one can only hope.

It does say "expedite" on it. So that makes it OK. Perhaps we should be allowed "expedited procedures" whereby 5 employees are asked if any of these names look familiar, and you go with that!

At least it is a short list.

Well, I am nothing short of MAD! This is just about the last straw....the one that breaks my back. Virtually what all this means is we CANNOT go on vacation, take a sick day,or heaven forbid DIE because this "list" would not be checked at the perfect time!

I have required each department, including myself, to designate an alternate person responsible for the receipt and processing of this information. This was to aleviate any problems in the event of vacations/sick time, etc.

Hey ComplyGuy, I totally agree with you! My next question....how do we get it sent to an alternative person when we are out of the office? No one can see my email but me.

We have alternative designations as well, but c'mon - from a two-week response time to a 2 DAY response time? That's hitting way below the belt.

Complyguy - I would suggest that it is not your responsibility but your bank's responsibility to make sure the search is done. If your employer chooses not to respond to the request while you are absent, then it becomes their liability.

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Now that human cloning has been banned in the U.S., there is no chance of my getting an alternate person to do my job if I'm not here.

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I know that the email is being sent to my address. If I am out of pocket (which I was on the first day it came in two weeks ago) I have someone within my department check my email, print off the request, print of the departments notification letters, and send them out.

The fact is that we have to do it, so how can we work it to be managable? This is what has so far worked for us.

IMO we have decided to have 2 people as "alternates" to the primary respondent. I'd like to contact FinCEN to have these two names, phone #s and e-mail addresses added to their database. However, I'm not sure how to go about it.

There is an e-mail address at the bottom of the information request that just arrived, but I'm not sure if this would be OK to use just to update our bank's contact info. Heaven forbid they confuse what I'm mailing them about, since that is actually the expedited research return address. The other option is a "hotline" (1-800-949-2732) that I got from the website, but upon calling that I only got a messaging service.

Help! Do any of you have a number that would work for this?

Really?!?! Oh, me of little faith! I'll give a shot, then! Thanks (and I love your poor dancing chicken!)

Does FinCEN even have the authority to require turn around this quickly? The regulation just says that we have to search "expeditiously" and respond "in the time frame specified in FinCEN's request". Section 314(a) of the act doesn't say anything about time frames. I always assumed that it was section 319(b)'s 120 hour rule that gave FinCEN the authority to expedite a request.

120 hours is bad enough, but they have essentially given us 72 hours to respond.

In the Q & A's attached to the "Instructions for Responding to Section 314(a) Requests" the answer to question #22 states "The contact information for an institution can be changed by sending an e-mail or facsimile to the institution's primary federal regulator contact ..." the contacts were listed later as an attachment.

Question #23 asks "whether it is permissible for a financial institution to have more than one point of contact person ..." and the FinCEN answers "Yes. A financial institution may have more than one contact person ...Additional contact persons may be added by sending an e-mail or facsimile to the institution's primary federal regulator ..."


This information and the attachments were e-mailed to me by our initial primary contact and I can't seem to find it on FinCEN's website. If you would like a copy, please email me at katoscano@flag.net

When we receive an expedited request, I believe that is a "special" category. Other requests could still be received following the normal 2 week time-frame.

This is yet another reason to have a system in place to ensure messages are retrieved during the POCs absence.

Another suggestion that I think may have been posted here before: We contacted our email service provider and asked that a special email address be set up that automatically forwards to several people in the bank. Then we provided that email address for the FinCEN requests.