Ahead of the House Financial Services Committee’s (HFSC) Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) oversight hearing, America’s Credit Unions President/CEO Jim Nussle expressed support for FinCEN’s efforts “to track and investigate financial crimes involving money laundering and terrorist financing” through beneficial ownership information (BOI) rulemakings.
Nussle noted that credit unions are “keenly interested” in BOI rules being promulgated under the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), as they hope it will “greatly ease meeting customer due diligence obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and its implementing regulations.” However, he added that BSA and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance is time-consuming and a large financial burden for credit unions.
Nussle also remarked that the BOI Effectiveness Act would require FinCEN to produce quarterly reports for Congress, including “the number of reporting companies that have submitted information for purposes of entry into the BOI database, as well as the measures FinCEN has taken to identify and penalize companies that fail to report or report false information.”
“America’s Credit Unions believes that greater transparency and information sharing would be helpful for both credit unions and law enforcement,” added Nussle. “Currently, credit unions file reports (e.g., the Suspicious Activity Report and Currency Transaction Report) that disappear into a black hole. Receiving detailed information about relevant law enforcement cases and prosecutions related to reporting would help credit unions more effectively implement BSA/AML compliance programs.”
America’s Credit Unions will continue engaging lawmakers and regulators to advance credit union priorities.
