WASHINGTON—Jan. 25 is the deadline to deliver comments to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for two proposed rules.
Those rules address a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) and an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA).
FinCEN issued a proposed rule to amend existing Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) regulations regarding customer due diligence (CDD) requirements for credit unions, banks, and other related entities 18 months ago. The CDD proposal would also impose a new requirement under the BSA to identify the beneficial owners of legal entity customers, subject to certain exemptions.
In December 2015, FinCEN made available the following documents related to the CDD proposal: a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) and an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA).
“The primary purpose of the CDD proposal is to impose requirements intended to assist financial investigations by law enforcement to impair criminals' ability to exploit the anonymity provided by the of use legal entities to engage in financial crimes,” noted the League of Southeastern Credit Unions (LSCU) in its analysis.
Compliance-related costs from the CDD proposal may exceed $100 million annually, FinCEN has stated, making this rulemaking an “economically significant regulatory action,” which requires agencies to conduct an RIA.
As the LSCU noted, CUNA has been asking credit unions for input on the accuracy of FinCEN's estimates and the need for the requirements included in the CDD proposal.