Guidance for Risk-Based Anti-Money Laundering Compliance

SIFMA, the Futures Industry Association (FIA), and the Investment Company Institute (ICI) provide comments to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on guidance for risk-based anti-money laundering compliance. The comments are regarding the Guidance on Obtaining and Retaining Beneficial Ownership Information, issued on March 5, 2010. The groups note that they share concerns with the guidance including: 1) the “costumer due diligence” represents an “existing regulatory expectation” previously communicated by the regulators to securities and futures firms; 2) the expectations in the guidance conflict with the approach to beneficial ownership set forth in the BSA; and 3) the description of “enhanced due diligence” includes concepts that appear in previous rules.