Key Takeaways from the 2016 Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crimes Conference

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Guest Post by Experts Susan Berger and Geoff Winkler

 

Bates Group Consulting Expert Susan Berger and Consultant Geoff Winkler had the pleasure of representing Bates at the 2016 Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) and Financial Crimes Conference presented by the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) last week in Las Vegas, Nevada. There were dozens of speakers representing regulatory agencies, financial institutions and consulting firms, and below are some of the key AML and financial crimes issues they identified facing the financial industry today:

1. Consistent with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance issued in this past year, financial institutions are concerned with creating and, more importantly, documenting their efforts to create a “culture of compliance” within their firms.

2. Financial elder abuse continues to be a high-visibility issue as regulators and financial institutions look to utilize and even expand the tools available to help prevent, deter and detect potential elder abuse, in addition to providing training to better spot these issues as they arise.  

3. Microcap securities continue to dominate the conversation regarding AML due to recent Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) cases that have demonstrated the potential exposure for firms that do business in this space and the high fines assessed in regulatory actions for AML and related violations.

4. The personal liability of AML compliance officers is a major concern as compliance officers have recently been individually named, sanctioned, fined and suspended from their duties for what FINRA said were egregious systemic problems in the firm’s AML compliance programs.

5. Implementation of FinCEN’s new “Customer Due Diligence” rule, especially its requirement to identify and verify the beneficial ownership of legal entity customers, is an issue of concern to all financial institutions since they all must review their current AML policies and procedures to assess what changes need to be made prior to the implementation date on May 11, 2018.

6. In the last year, the real estate industry has come under increased scrutiny as evidence emerges that real estate professionals, both wittingly and unwittingly, are often used by criminals to launder money. Since real estate professionals currently have no obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial institutions that maintain accounts for these real estate professionals are forced to bear the burden of compliance and associated risk that these accounts pose.

Bates Group will continue to monitor each of these issues and will bring you updates as any significant changes occur. If you are concerned that your financial institution may be lacking in any of these areas, or if you have questions about other AML issues, please visit Bates Compliance Solutions online.

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