Quiero saber acerca de...

jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with PROPOSALS

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 13 / Friday, January 22, 2021 / Proposed Rules the requirements for FDIC-supervised institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports SARs. The proposed rule would amend the FDICs SAR regulation to allow the FDIC to issue exemptions from the SAR requirements. The proposed rule would make it possible for the FDIC to grant relief to FDICsupervised institutions that develop innovative solutions to meet Bank Secrecy Act BSA requirements more efficiently and effectively.
DATES: Comments are due on or before February 22, 2021. Comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act burden estimates are due on or before March 23, 2021.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by RIN 3064AF56, by any of the following methods:
FDIC Website: https
www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/federal/.
Follow instructions for submitting comments on the agency website.
FDIC Email: Comments@fdic.gov.
Include RIN 3064AF56 on the subject line of the message.
Mail: Robert E. Feldman, Executive Secretary, Attention: Comments, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 550 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20429.
Hand Delivery/Courier: Comments may be hand-delivered to the guard station at the rear of the 550 17th Street building located on F Street on business days between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Please include your name, affiliation, address, email address, and telephone numbers in your comment. All statements received, including attachments and other supporting materials, are part of the public record and are subject to public disclosure.
You should submit only information that you wish to make publicly available.
Please note: All comments received will be posted generally without change to http www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/
federal, including any personal information provided.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lisa Arquette, Associate Director, 202 898
8633, larquette@fdic.gov, Division of Risk Management Supervision; John Dorsey, Acting Supervisory Counsel, 202 8983807, jdorsey@fdic.gov, Legal Division; or Constantine Lizas, Counsel, 202 8986925, clizas@fdic.gov, Legal Division.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Policy Objectives The policy objective of the proposed rule is to allow the FDIC to grant SAR
filing exemptions, in conjunction with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Department of the
VerDate Sep<11>2014

16:14 Jan 21, 2021

Jkt 253001

Treasury FinCEN, to FDIC-supervised institutions that develop innovative solutions to meet BSA requirements more efficiently and effectively. The FDIC is proposing this rule as a proactive measure to address the likelihood that FDIC-supervised institutions will leverage existing or future technologies to report information concerning suspicious activity in a different manner or time frame or to share SAR-related information. This change would more closely align the FDICs regulation with FinCENs regulation. FinCEN, unlike the FDIC, has broad statutory authority to issue exemptions from the SAR filing requirements. Because the FDICs SAR
regulations do not currently contain any provision by which the FDIC can issue case-by-case exemptions, a situation could arise in which FinCEN grants an exemption from the SAR filing requirements to an FDIC-supervised institution, but the institution would still need to file a SAR if the circumstance fell within the FDICs SAR
rule. The proposed rule would allow the FDIC to grant exemptions from SAR
filing requirements in conjunction with FinCEN to reduce potential regulatory burden when a request involves the SAR filing requirements of both FinCEN
and the FDIC.
II. Background The FDIC has long required its supervised institutions to report potential violations of law arising from transactions that flow through those institutions. From 1986 to 1996, FDICsupervised institutions filed criminal referral forms with the FDIC, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the local U.S. Attorneys office.1 The FDIC
required reporting through criminal referral forms to facilitate the reporting of potential violations to law enforcement.
In 1992, Congress passed the Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act, which redesigned the criminal referral process applicable to FDIC-supervised institutions and made the reporting of certain suspicious transactions a requirement of the BSA.2
The Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act permitted the Department of the Treasury to require financial institutions, including FDICsupervised institutions, to report any suspicious transaction relevant to a 1 The FDIC first codified this requirement in 1986
at 12 CFR part 353 1986, which required FDIC
insured state non-member banks to report apparent violations of federal criminal law. 51
FR 16485, 16486 May 5, 1986.
2 Public Law 102550, 106 Stat. 3672 Oct. 28, 1992.

PO 00000

Frm 00010

Fmt 4702

Sfmt 4702

6581

possible violation of law or regulation. 3 Thereafter, the Department of the Treasury, in consultation with the FDIC, the other federal banking agencies, and law enforcement, developed the modern SAR form and reporting process, which standardized the reporting forms and created a centralized database that could be accessed by multiple law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
To implement this new reporting system, FinCEN implemented its SAR
regulation in 1996 4 for financial institutions subject to BSA requirements to address, among other things, the reporting of money laundering transactions and transactions designed to evade the reporting requirements of the BSA.5 To further implement this new reporting process and reduce unnecessary reporting burdens, the FDIC and the other federal banking agencies contemporaneously amended their criminal referral form regulations to incorporate the new SAR form and reporting database, align their regulatory reporting requirements with FinCENs reporting requirements, and further refine the reporting processes.6
As a result of this redesign and FinCENs implementing regulation, FDIC-supervised institutions are currently required under both FDIC and FinCEN regulations to file SARs. These regulations are not identical but are substantially similar. Both SAR
regulations require, among other things, FDIC-supervised institutions to file SARs relating to money laundering and transactions that are designed to evade the reporting requirements of the BSA, as well as maintain the confidentiality of a SAR in most circumstances.7
However, the FDICs SAR regulation covers a slightly broader range of transactions, for example, by requiring SARs to be filed for any known or suspected instance of insider abuse in any amount, and further requiring the 3 31 U.S.C. 5318g1. The quoted text is from section 1517 of the Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act, which was originally codified at 31
U.S.C. 5314g. The text was moved as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
4 FinCEN is the Administrator of the Bank Secrecy Act.
5 61 FR 4326 Feb. 5, 1996. Prior to the adoption of FinCENs SAR regulation in 1996 and the accompanying revisions to the FDICs regulation, the FDICs criminal referral regulation had no specific provision requiring the reporting of money laundering transactions. See footnote 1. However, the FDICs criminal referral regulation prior to the SAR regulation broadly encompassed money laundering and structuring transactions. See 58 FR
28757, 28772 May 17, 1993.
6 61 FR 6095 Feb. 16, 1996 FDIC; 61 FR 6100
Feb. 16, 1996 OTS; 61 FR 4326 Feb. 5, 1996
FinCEN.
7 See 12 CFR part 353; 31 CFR 1020.320a2.

E:FRFM22JAP1.SGM

22JAP1