There was an e-mail from ABA recently that stated the agencies will be notifying us to stop our searches on the FinCen lists. Yes!!!!!!

Yeee-hah!

Woo-hoo!

As Austin Powers would say, Y-e-a-h-h-h-h- Baby!

I haven't seen this. Where can we find it?

I received notification by email from ABA. If you want, I can forward to you, if you'll provide your email address.

Here is the e-mail I received from ABA's MoneyLaundering and Terrorism Update that I subsribed to. It is free!

Today, The US Treasury Department announced a moratorium of the processing of requests from FinCEN under Section 314(a) of the USA Patriot Act. All covered financial institutions are to stop the processing of all previous requests. It is expected that the official notice will be disciminated by each institution's regulator today, Tuesday November 19, 2002, or tomorrow.

This effort on the part of Treasury, the Regulators and FinCEN is to re-visit Section 314 and make it workable for all covered financial institutions.

It must be recognized that this moratorium does not cover the OFAC List or the Control List. Both of those lists will continue as usual. In addition, in the case of a national emergency, additional instructions will be announced as needed.

Hope it helps.

Opinions are mine not my employer

Could you please email the message you got from ABA? I certainly appreciated it.
erzi@emprisebank.com

Thank you

Maria - would you mind sharing information on how to subscribe to the ABA's MoneyLaundering and Terrorism Update? I've been to their website and have been unable to find anything on it. Thanks very much.

I have not seen this either. Can I have a copy.
tsweet@goldcountrynb.com

To subscribe to the ABA's MoneyLaundering and Terrorism Update email John Byrne at jbyrne@aba.com and ask him to add you to his weekly BSA e-newsletter.

Do you need to be an ABA member to receive the newsletter?

Has anyone received an official notification from any of the regulatory agencies yet that we can stop the FinCEN searches? We really want to stop but need to have it in writing first from the OTS.

I had it officially in person from a representative at FinCEN via phone call.

Thanks Jim, my contact at ACB spoke with the OTS yesterday who said the OTS does not recommend stopping searches on the requests we have already received and they agreed that there is some confusion as to what to do with the current requests. I was hoping someone had something in writing from one of the agencies. Let's hope something comes out soon!

ABA Newsbytes---11-20-02

In reply to:

---

SECTION 314(a) MORATORIUM
ABA learned that the Treasury Department imposed a moratorium yesterday on processing requests from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network under Section 314(a) of the USA Patriot Act. All covered financial institutions should stop processing all previous requests. Regulators were expected to notify their institutions by today. The reason Treasury, FinCEN and the regulators are taking this action is to revisit Section 314 and make it workable for all covered financial institutions. The moratorium does not cover the OFAC List or the Control List, and they will continue as usual. In the case of a national emergency, additional instructions will be given.

---

Good enough for me, of course, it did come too late, we had already finished our searches. Thank goodness we are still rather small and centralized.

Our agency is OCC and we have not received anything from them directly yet.

Opinions and requests are mine not my employer.

I've heard that we still need to check the existing FinCEN requests but that there is a 3 to 4 week moratorium on any new requests, which can be lifted immediately in the event of a national emergency or a strategic need for information.

In reply to:

---

The moratorium does not cover the OFAC List or the Control List, and they will continue as usual.

---

Could this little statement in the press release have prompted someone at the FBI to say..."Control List processing??? No....were DONE with the Control List...DOH!!! We forgot to tell anyone!"

Mark, who did you hear from stating that we should continue searches in progress? ABA seems to have gotten the word on this and it generally takes agencies a little longer to draft their bulletins. If we were still searching, I believe that we would have probably stopped based on this line from the ABA Newsbytes

In reply to:

---

All covered financial institutions should stop processing all previous requests.

---

I just received an advance copy of an interagency statement and OCC alert - making it official that the moratorium is in place. These will be issued today (and come from the OTS as well as the other supervisory agencies). Both docs also state that this 314(a) process replaces the control list project, implying that the control lists were for one time checks, and these requests will be for one time checks.

The interagency notices says:

"The “Control List” and Section 314(a) Information Requests

FinCEN has advised the federal financial supervisory agencies that the FBI will discontinue the use of the “Control List” and instead will use the section 314(a) process to communicate with banking organizations and others about individuals and entities who are suspected of engaging in terrorist financing activities."

The announcement is out. I just got one from the OCC site. Moratorium on 314(a) and death of control list.

Here is the Joint release:

http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/alert/2002-14a.pdf