On December 21, 2023, five US federal regulatory agencies,* together with state bank and credit union regulators, issued a statement introducing and clarifying the final Access Rule published simultaneously by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The Access Rule applies to beneficial ownership information that must be reported to FinCEN pursuant to section 6403 of the Corporate Transparency Act,** and stored in the Beneficial Ownership Information Technology System (“BOIT system”). The statement, entitled “Interagency Statement for Banks on the Issuance of the Access Rule,” explains that the Access Rule governs access to, and use of, information contained in the BOIT system. It does not create a new regulatory mandate for banks to access beneficial ownership information from the system and does not necessitate changes to current Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering compliance programs. And banks do not need to change their risk-based compliance programs, so long as they are designed to comply with the Customer Due Diligence Rule published in 2016. In the future, FinCEN will revise the Customer Due Diligence Rule to bring it into conformity with the Anti-Money Laundering Act and provide direction for banks.
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*The agencies are: The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
**The Corporate Transparency Act is part of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020.