On April 28, 2022, FinCEN released a statement by Acting Director Himamauli Das before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services where he provided an update on FinCEN’s implementation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AML Act), including the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA).
Das started his remarks by highlighting the importance of the AML Act in preventing financial system exploitation, especially during the pandemic and the rise of ransomware. He added that the invasion of Ukraine placed a renewed spotlight on the importance of an effective AML/CFT regime. FinCEN is working with financial intelligence units of other countries to enhance financial intelligence on sanctions-related matters.
According to Das, FinCEN is taking several actions to fight corruption by implementing beneficial ownership requirements, better addressing money laundering risks in the real estate market, and identifying ways to enhance transparency for investment advisers. Das discussed the implementation plan for the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), which will establish a beneficial ownership reporting regime to assist law enforcement in unmasking shell companies used to hide illicit activities. Firstly, FinCEN published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in December 2021 that proposed regulations to implement the beneficial ownership reporting requirements of the CTA, and in particular, defined core terms that will affect the scope of the regulations. FinCEN is currently developing a second NPRM that will propose regulations governing access to beneficial ownership information by law enforcement, national security agencies, financial institutions, and others specified in the statute. Lastly, FinCEN plans to revise the Customer Due Diligence (CDD) regulation for financial institutions, which should bring the CDD regulation into conformance with the beneficial ownership rules under the CTA and reduce unnecessary or duplicative requirements.
Concurrent with the rulemaking effort, FinCEN is developing the backbone of the beneficial ownership database—the Beneficial Ownership Secure System (BOSS).
The full statement can be found here.
