August 1, 2017
In a comment letter to the Treasury department yesterday, ABA provided extensive feedback on several Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering regulations that could be eliminated, modified or streamlined to reduce the compliance burden on banks in response to an executive order issued by President Trump earlier this year.Emphasizing that the banking industry is committed to combatting terrorist financing and financial crime, ABA recommended a series of changes to improve and modernize the current regulatory regime, including creating an independent “BSA gatekeeper” to oversee and coordinate the BSA regime, taking a priority-focused approach to compliance, increasing the quality of feedback and transparency, streamlining reporting requirements, refraining from criminal sanctions that impose administrative compliance standards and redefining procedures for taking criminal actions against banks.