The Annual Report summarizes the OCC developments against its 2019 strategic priorities, including its priority to reduce the burden of Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) compliance while protecting the financial system.
In 2019, the OCC, along with the other federal financial regulatory agencies, issued interpretive guidance statements on using collaborative arrangements to share resources to manage BSA/AML obligations, considering innovative technologies to meet BSA/AML compliance obligations, clarifying existing risk-focused approaches to examinations of financial institutions’ BSA/AML compliance programs, and clarifying suspicious activity report (SAR) filing requirements for banks providing financial services to hemp-related businesses.
The OCC appears very focused on encouraging banks to adopt innovative technologies to manage their BSA/AML compliance risks, and this trend should continue in 2020 as technological solutions evolve even further.
Additional contributor to this post:
Ben Marzouk, benmarzouk@eversheds-sutherland.com
