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The United States, Italy, and Saudi Arabia virtually hosted a meeting last month of the Counter ISIS Finance Group (CIFG) under the auspices of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The CIFG co-leads yesterday issued a joint statement exhorting the Coalition members to continue working together and encouraging them to implement a list of comprehensive strategies to counter ISIS financing worldwide.

The joint statement was accompanied by a Fact Sheet on ISIS Financing.

On Thursday, the Federal Reserve Board announced the execution of a written agreement among Customers Bancorp, Inc., West Reading, Pennsylvania, Customers Bank, Malvern, Pennsylvania (together, the "organization"), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

According to the agreement, Customers Bancorp, Inc., the holding company for Customers Bank, has pursued a business strategy that involves offering banking services to digital asset customers, and also operates an instant payments platform that allows commercial clients to make tokenized payments over a distributed ledger technology system to other commercial clients of the Bank. Recent examinations of the holding company and bank by the Reserve Bank identified significant deficiencies related to the Bank’s risk management practices and compliance with the applicable laws, rules, and regulations relating to anti-money laundering, including the Bank Secrecy Act and the regulations issued by OFAC.

The agreement acknowledges that the organization has begun to address the identified deficiencies and sets forth specific further steps the organization must take in that regard.

Yesterday, the OCC announced it will allow national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks to close offices in areas of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. if the offices are directly affected by potentially unsafe conditions caused by Hurricane Debby.

The Treasury Department has reported that OFAC has designated Paraguayan tobacco company Tabacalera del Este S.A. (Tabesa) for providing financial support to Paraguay’s former president, Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara, whom OFAC sanctioned on January 26, 2023, for his involvement in corruption. Tabesa was designated pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

BankersOnline’s August 6, 2024, OFAC Update includes identification information on Tabesa.

The Federal Reserve Board yesterday issued final joint guidance to help certain large banks further develop their resolution plans. The Board developed the guidance jointly with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and it is now final following both agencies' approval. These resolution plans, also known as living wills, describe a bank's strategy for orderly resolution under bankruptcy in the event of material financial distress or failure.

The guidance generally applies to domestic and foreign banks with more than $250 billion in total assets but that are not the largest and most complex banks, for which guidance is already in place. The guidance addresses the specific characteristics of, and risks posed by, this group of banks.

Distinct from the guidance to the largest and most complex banks, this guidance provides agency expectations for both single point of entry and multiple point of entry resolution strategies, which are different strategies banks have adopted for their rapid and orderly resolution. It also recognizes that the preferred resolution outcome for foreign banks is often a successful home country-led resolution and guides foreign banks on how to address the global resolution plan in their U.S. plan.

The agencies also announced that they are extending the resolution plan submission deadline for the banks to which the guidance applies. Banks will be required to submit their resolution plans by October 1, 2025, instead of March 31, 2025. The purpose of the extension is to provide reasonable time for banks to consider the final guidance as they develop their plan submissions.

The guidance will be effective upon publication in the Federal Register.

• Guidance for Resolution Plan Submissions of Domestic Triennial Full Filers
• Guidance for Resolution Plan Submissions of Foreign Triennial Full Filers
• Statement by Governor Michelle W. Bowman
• Publication update: Published at 89 FR 66388 (domestic) and 89 FR 66510 (foreign) in the Federal Register. Effective on publication.

The OCC has announced that national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks may close offices in areas of Florida and Georgia directly affected by potentially unsafe conditions caused by Hurricane Debby.

OFAC has announced upcoming updates for users of its Compliance Hotline service. OFAC is transitioning to a single, user-friendly online platform to receive questions from the public. Users can now submit queries—and provide all necessary details—directly through OFAC’s new OFAC Compliance Hotline page. This new platform is designed to improve OFAC’s tracking of queries and help OFAC assess when additional public guidance may be helpful.

OFAC will fully transition its Compliance Hotline to this web form platform by January 1, 2025, and will retire other existing forms of contacting the OFAC Compliance Hotline according to the following schedule: OFAC will retire the Compliance Hotline email (OFAC_Feedback@treasury.gov) on August 16, 2024; and its Compliance Hotline telephone (1-800-540-6322 and 202-622-2490) on December 31, 2024.

The Federal Reserve Board on Friday announced it is requesting comment on a proposed rule that would establish data standards for certain information collections submitted to financial regulatory agencies. In addition to the Board, the standards have been proposed by several other federal financial regulatory agencies. The proposal would promote interoperability of data collected by financial regulatory agencies through the establishment of data standards for identifiers of legal entities and other data elements.

This proposal is part of the implementation of the Financial Data Transparency Act of 2022. Once the final standards are established, the Board will issue a separate rule that adopts those standards for certain information collected by the Board.

Comments on the proposal are due 60 days following joint publication by the Board, the OCC, FDIC, NCUA, CFPB, FHFA, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, SEC, and the Department of the Treasury in the Federal Register.

Publication and comment period update: Published by the agencies in the August 22, 2024, Federal Register with a 60-day comment period ending on October 21, 2024.

The NCUA yesterday reported it issue2 two prohibition orders in July barring individuals from participating in the affairs of any federally insured depository institution. The orders were issued to:

• Jose Prado-Valero, a former employee of Financial Center First Credit Union in Indianapolis, Indiana, after finding that he engaged in an elaborate fraud to share credit union members’ personal information with non-members who fraudulently withdrew members’ funds, in exchange for a portion of the proceeds of the fraud. Valero pleaded guilty to a one-count information in federal court in April 2024.
• Tracy H. Thibodeau, a former employee of Vermont VA Federal Credit Union in White River Junction, Vermont, after finding that, as a branch manager of the credit union, she fraudulently obtained a personal Vermont VA FCU credit card and exempted herself from credit limits, late fees, interest payments, and making minimum monthly payments, defrauding the credit union of $137,170. She subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of bank fraud in federal court.

The Department of the Treasury yesterday reported that OFAC has sanctioned two individuals and four companies that have facilitated weapons procurement for Ansarallah, commonly referred to as the Houthis. This action targets key actors located in the People’s Republic of China, including Hong Kong, and Yemen who have directly supported Houthis’ efforts to procure military-grade materials abroad and ship these items to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, enabling the group’s ongoing attacks.

For the names and identification information of the designated parties, see this July 31, 2024, BankersOnline OFAC Update.