if this has been posted get rid of. i did a search and did not find.
Feds to banks: Time to stop money launderers
Local financial institutions now will monitor Internet gambling, small international wire transfers.
Orlando Business Journal - February 9, 2007 by Jim Freer and Jill Krueger Staff Writers
Internet gambling and even the smallest international wire transfers are about to make the list of transactions Central Florida banks will monitor under anti-money laundering laws.
Regulators plan to add the first of the new requirements this year and will add the second by early 2008, says Clemente Vazquez-Bello, a partner in the Miami office of law firm Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart.
Preparations for those changes could make 2007 another year in which many banks spend more time and money to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and the 2001 USA Patriot Act, says Vazquez-Bello and several Central Florida bankers.
Some costs of the change on wire transfers -- but not on the less-costly Internet gambling monitoring -- could be passed on to customers, they add.
Officials with several Central Florida banks say their compliance costs have risen by 200-300 percent or more since 2001, mostly for adding staff and technology to comply with the BSA. The 1970 federal law requires banks and credit unions to have ongoing programs for monitoring customers and transactions for possible money laundering.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, bank regulators and the U.S. Department of the Treasury have required financial institutions to obtain more background information on their customers and their businesses, and on individuals who move money into customers' accounts. Banks are attempting to meet regulators' standards for compliance and, thus, avoid cease-and-desist orders and other penalties.
"Always before, banks were asked to know their customers," says Meg Clark, senior vice president and compliance coordinator for United Heritage Bank. "Now, we just have to document it well."
As a result, most banks have added more security and more background checks to verify documents, such as driver's licenses, she says.
"We don't have large volumes of customers or accounts, and yet they wanted us to ensure that whoever our clients were, that they weren't on a list of money launderers or a list of terrorists," adds Michael Sheffey, Orlando regional president of Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida (Nasdaq: SBCF).
Wachovia Bank also increased employee education. All of its more than 100,000 employees, including those in Central Florida, now take a one-hour online course on the anti-money laundering laws.
Feds to banks: Time to stop money launderers
Local financial institutions now will monitor Internet gambling, small international wire transfers.
Orlando Business Journal - February 9, 2007 by Jim Freer and Jill Krueger Staff Writers
Internet gambling and even the smallest international wire transfers are about to make the list of transactions Central Florida banks will monitor under anti-money laundering laws.
Regulators plan to add the first of the new requirements this year and will add the second by early 2008, says Clemente Vazquez-Bello, a partner in the Miami office of law firm Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart.
Preparations for those changes could make 2007 another year in which many banks spend more time and money to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and the 2001 USA Patriot Act, says Vazquez-Bello and several Central Florida bankers.
Some costs of the change on wire transfers -- but not on the less-costly Internet gambling monitoring -- could be passed on to customers, they add.
Officials with several Central Florida banks say their compliance costs have risen by 200-300 percent or more since 2001, mostly for adding staff and technology to comply with the BSA. The 1970 federal law requires banks and credit unions to have ongoing programs for monitoring customers and transactions for possible money laundering.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, bank regulators and the U.S. Department of the Treasury have required financial institutions to obtain more background information on their customers and their businesses, and on individuals who move money into customers' accounts. Banks are attempting to meet regulators' standards for compliance and, thus, avoid cease-and-desist orders and other penalties.
"Always before, banks were asked to know their customers," says Meg Clark, senior vice president and compliance coordinator for United Heritage Bank. "Now, we just have to document it well."
As a result, most banks have added more security and more background checks to verify documents, such as driver's licenses, she says.
"We don't have large volumes of customers or accounts, and yet they wanted us to ensure that whoever our clients were, that they weren't on a list of money launderers or a list of terrorists," adds Michael Sheffey, Orlando regional president of Seacoast Banking Corp. of Florida (Nasdaq: SBCF).
Wachovia Bank also increased employee education. All of its more than 100,000 employees, including those in Central Florida, now take a one-hour online course on the anti-money laundering laws.
uppy:....good job fella's
