Newsroom

August 24, 2014

FinCEN sets Oct. 3 deadline for BSA comments

Aug. 5, 2014 – Oct. 3 is the deadline for comments to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on the proposed certification of "beneficial owners" of new bank or credit union accounts under Bank Secrecy Act rules.

Treasury said the proposed rule would require covered financial institutions to collect information on beneficial ownership of accounts in a standardized format from the persons opening the accounts. "Those financial institutions will have to identify and verify any individual who owns 25 percent of more of a legal entity, and an individual who controls the legal entity," it said.

For those individuals, the person opening the account would need to complete a form giving the beneficial owners' names, birth dates, address and social security numbers or, if they are foreign persons, passport information.

The proposal follows FinCEN's advance notice of proposed rulemaking from 2012. At the time, NAFCU wrote that such a proposal would be costly for credit unions and unnecessary given current BSA/anti-money laundering program requirements.

NAFCU is preparing a Regulatory Alert seeking members' input to the association's official comment.