Are bearer share certificates held in safekeeping required to be in the US and with a third party? If so where in BSA is this coming from?

To what bearer share certificates are you referring?

Offshore corporations.

No one has to hold bearer certificates in safekeeping - they are what they are entitled - payable to the bearer - no registration - no nothing. You are going to have to be a lot less cryptic if you expect assistance.

Why are you asking. What relationship do you "think" this has to BSA - etc.

Its not my intention to be cryptic. A segment of our customers are foreigners.For some of the business accounts, we hold in safekeeping bearer share certificates. One of our customers informed us that a competitor was refusing to hold such bearer certificates due to AML/BSA laws unless it is held within the US and by a third party. I can't find anything that relates to this in BSA.

It is not currently within our bank's risk tolerance to have accounts with entities owned in the form of "bearer shares". Perhaps the safekeeping of these certificates is an internal control measure of the bank to insure that the bank knows the "true owner" of a company.

We have bearer share accounts and we require the certificates be held with an attorney in the US.

The point of having them with an attorney is knowing they are not being transferred to anyone else. We make the attorney sign a letter saying they will not release them to anyone and we make the customer certify that those are all the certificates and that no new certificates will be issued. It is a way to trying to control the situtation.

The fact is that with bearer shares you will never really know because even though the certificates are held with an attorney, new certificates can be produced and distributed. It really is an attempt to try and manage the risk.