Are there any banks that are running OFAC for people that come in for cash advances?

It all depends on your OFAC risk assessment.

It is not in our policy. I fail to understand why we, the bank should have to OFAC a non-customer that is not obtaining a negotiable instrument. Wouldn't the bank that issues the credit card perform an OFAC check?

We don't perform OFAC verification on cash advances because of our risk assessment. If your level of risk requires you to perform OFAC verification, I would not suggest being dependent upon another institution's OFAC verification unless their is a written agreement.

Our bank does OFAC any non-customer who wants a cash advance. We aren't willing to take the chance that someone traveling through the area may be on the list.
BTW, I don't trust the credit card companies much.

Any one who does business with someone on the OFAC list can be held accountable. So whether this person is your customer or not doesnt matter in this particular example. If your FI did business with a person or entity on one of the OFAC Sanction Lists, there could be ramifications.

If the person requesting a cash advance is not our customer, how would we scrub the customer against the OFAC list? We wouldn't have a personal record or an account for the individual.

I agree with Platform Queen, the OFAC responsibility, in this situation, lies with the credit card company who issues the card. They need to know their customer, not necessarily the institution who gives cash off the credit card.

It would lie with the Credit Card Company and the FI. As far as I know, any one who does business w/ a person or entity on a Sanction List can be held accountable. Maybe one of the Guru's want to chime in and verify?

ACBbank is right. If you conduct the transaction, you are responsible to OFAC for the transaction.

The OFAC Q&A is pretty clear on responsibilities. I realize this is not a cashier's check or money order transaction, but the OFAC answer pretty well sums it up.

Does my bank need to check the OFAC list when selling cashier's checks and money orders? In the case of cashier's checks, do I need to check both the purchaser and the payee? As a mortgage lender, do I need to check both the purchaser and the seller's name against the SDN list?

Every transaction that a U.S. financial institution engages in is subject to OFAC regulations. If a bank knows or has reason to know that a target is party to a transaction, the bank's processing of the transaction would be unlawful. [09-10-02]

That being said, your OFAC risk assessment should address cash advances on credit cards. If you are willing to tolerate the risk, you can forego the OFAC checks, otherwise you probably should do the checks.

We do OFAC check on all non-customer cash advances. Agree with the other comments regarding risk assessment; but, my view this is easy and quick to do at teller line, so why take any risk.
Jim

Do you charge a fee for non-customer cash advances? I know at tax refund time we have a lot of non-customers come in with their refunds on cards. Just curious as to what other BOLers do. Thanks!

Regardless of what other BOLers do, to charge a non-customer a cash advance fee would be a violation of your Visa or MasterCard agreement. You are already paid a fee for the cash advance as part of your card transaction settlements.

You can impose an ATM surcharge for cash advances made at one of your ATMs, except for international customers.

Thanks very much - that's what I was thinking. I appreciate your response!