WASHINGTON—The House has passed two bills related to financial inclusion and the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/anti-money laundering (AML) regime: The Financial Inclusion in Banking Act (H.R. 4067), and the COUNTER Act (H.R. 2514) as a standalone bill.
The COUNTER Act seeks to reduce the burden of certain Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filings on financial institutions and would index the threshold for Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) to inflation. The bill would also make improvements to the BSA/AML regime, such as improved regulator coordination and encourage innovation in the AML system.
The House last week added the COUNTER Act's provisions to the Corporate Transparency Act (H.R. 2513) – which addresses beneficial ownership reporting – and passed the bill 249-173. By advancing the separate bill, the House vote demonstrates the strong bipartisan support for the COUNTER Act and provides the Senate with more options as it considers BSA/AML relief, NAFCU stated.
The Financial Inclusion Banking Act would require the CFPB's Office of Community Affairs to research how to increase financial inclusion for underserved communities.
CUNA Supports Bill
Separately, CUNA said it supports legislation requiring financial services regulators to report annually to Congress regarding their cybersecurity measures.
CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle sent a letter to House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Waters (D-CA) and Ranking Member Patrick McHenry (R-NC) prior to the committee’s markup of H.R. 4458, the Cybersecurity and Financial System Resilience Act.
Noting credit unions prioritize protecting their members’ financial and personal information, CUNA said it supports H.R. 4458, which would require the financial services sectors’ regulators to each issue an annual report to Congress describing the measures it has taken to strengthen cybersecurity within its’ functions as a regulator, including the supervision and regulation of financial intuitions and third-party service providers.
Enhanced FISMA
H.R. 4458 would enhance the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), which requires regulators to develop, document, and implement an agency-wide program to provide information security for the information and information systems that support the operations and assets of the agency. Reporting requirements would ensure a robust oversight of their regulated entities, which falls in align with the primary duty of the regulators, CUNA said.
“The regulators should be given wide latitude to decide the information reported publicly on the status of their regulated entities. Any information that details cyber vulnerabilities at financial institutions should not be reported publicly as it could harm the sector as bad actors could use reports as a roadmap for future attacks,” Nussle wrote. “Furthermore, the regulators should coordinate publicly reporting their regulated financial institutions for the same reason.”
CUNA added that it commends the NCUA Chairman Rodney Hood for recently appointing a cybersecurity advisor. “We recognize the proactive efforts NCUA has taken to secure the cybersecurity framework for credit unions and their members,” Nussle said.