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The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has announced that it will host "Innovation Hours" in New York City on November 13-14, 2019. Financial technology (FinTech), and Regulatory technology (RegTech) companies, and financial institutions will have the opportunity to present their innovative products, services, and approaches designed to enhance anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) efforts. Companies interested in meeting with FinCEN in New York should submit a web request no later than November 1, 2019, and provide applicable background information about their firm’s business and innovative products. Primary consideration for requests will be given to entities that are at the operational stage. Preference will be given to companies located within the greater New York City metropolitan area and the number of individual sessions will be limited.

The FDIC has issued FIL-63-2019 announcing the FDIC's new Enterprise File Exchange (EFX) module via FDICconnect. EFX is a secure application for FDIC-insured institutions to exchange examination-related documentation with the FDIC and State banking authorities.

EFX replaced FDICconnect's Examination File Exchange (EFE) on September 30 as the primary tool for exchanging those documents. EFE will continue to be used for ongoing exams commenced before September 30, and will be phased out around April 1, 2020.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has reported that Jong Woo Son, 23, a South Korean national, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia for his operation of Welcome To Video, the largest child sexual exploitation market by volume of content. The nine-count indictment was unsealed Wednesday along with a parallel civil forfeiture action. Son has also been charged and convicted in South Korea and is currently in custody serving his sentence in South Korea. An additional 337 site users residing in 23 states and D.C. as well as the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Brazil and Australia have been arrested and charged. Two of those charged were Homeland Security employees—a Homeland Security Investigations special agent and a U.S. Border Patrol agent..

This Darknet website is among the first of its kind to monetize child exploitation videos using bitcoin. In fact, the site itself boasted over one million downloads of child exploitation videos by users. Each user received a unique bitcoin address when the user created an account on the website. An analysis of the server revealed that the website had more than one million bitcoin addresses, signifying that the website had capacity for at least one million users. The law enforcement operation is responsible for the rescue of at least 23 minor victims residing in the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom, who were being actively abused by the users of the site.

The OCC has announced it will hold Innovation Office Hours on October 28 in Las Vegas to promote responsible innovation in the federal banking system.

Office Hours are one-on-one meetings with Office of Innovation staff to discuss financial technology (fintech), new products or services, partnering with a bank or fintech company, or other matters related to responsible innovation in the federal banking system. OCC staff will provide feedback and respond to questions. Each meeting will last no longer than one hour. Requests for Office Hours sessions must be submitted by October 18.

The OCC has released its bank supervision operating plan for fiscal year 2020. Supervisory strategies will focus on—

• cybersecurity and operational resiliency
• BSA/AML compliance management
• commercial and retail credit underwriting practices and oversight and control functions
• impact of changing interest rate outlooks on bank activities and risk exposures
• preparedness for the current expected credit losses (CECL) account standard, and preparation for the potential phase-out of LIBOR
• technological innovation and implementation

In FIL-50-2019 the FDIC is notifying FDIC-supervised financial institutions that the Office of the Ombudsman, which is independent of the supervisory process, reports directly to the FDIC Chairman's office, and is a confidential resource for banks, is now administering the Post-Examination Survey process.

The Office of the Ombudsman will:

• Assume responsibility for soliciting Survey responses effective October 1, 2019;
• Send notice that the Survey will accompany the Report of Examination;
• Provide a reminder to encourage participation in the Survey; and
• Serve as the contact point for banks regarding the Survey and follow-up requests.

The FIL includes links to the current post-exam survey questions for the Safety and Soundness and the Compliance and CRA exams.

The CFPB has published in today's Federal Register a notice and request for information to identify opportunities to utilize Tech Sprints as a means to encourage regulatory innovation and collaborate with stakeholders in developing viable solutions to regulatory compliance challenges. Tech Sprints have been used successfully by the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom to gather regulators, technologists, financial institutions, and subject matter experts from key stakeholders for several days to work together to develop innovative solutions to clearly-identified challenges.

Tech Sprints have also been used by the U.S. Census Bureau, where tech companies, universities, government and communities together worked to translate U.S. government open data into useful digital products over the course of a 12-week sprint. At the end of the sprint, products launched and often moved on to full development as tools for the public.

Comments are due by November 8, 2019.

The CFPB has issued three new policies to promote innovation and facilitate compliance: the No-Action Letter (NAL) Policy, Trial Disclosure Program (TDP) Policy, and Compliance Assistance Sandbox (CAS) Policy.

No-action letters provide increased regulatory certainty through a statement that the Bureau will not bring a supervisory or enforcement action against a company for providing a product or service under certain facts and circumstances. The Bureau has issued its first NAL under the new NAL Policy in response to a request by HUD on behalf of more than 1,600 housing counseling agencies (HCAs) that participate in HUD’s housing counseling program. The no-action letter essentially states that the Bureau will not take supervisory or enforcement action under RESPA against HUD-certified HCAs that have entered into certain fee-for-service arrangements with lenders for pre-purchasing of housing counseling services. The Bureau also released a No-Action Letter Template for mortgage lenders to apply for a NAL for any HUD-required MOU between the mortgage lender and a participating counseling agency under a Housing Counseling Funding Agreement.

Under the new TDP Policy, entities seeking to improve consumer disclosures may conduct in-market testing of alternative disclosures for a limited time upon permission by the Bureau.

The CAS Policy enables testing of a financial product or service where there is regulatory uncertainty. After the Bureau evaluates the product or service for compliance with relevant law, an approved applicant that complies in good faith with the terms of the approval will have a “safe harbor” from liability for specified conduct during the testing period. Approvals under the CAS Policy will provide protection from liability under the Truth in Lending Act, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, or the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

UPDATE: The policies were published in the Federal Register 9/13/2019:
NAL policy: 84 FR 48229
TDP policy: 84 FR 48260
CAS policy: 84 FR 48246

The CFPB announced Tuesday the launch of the American Consumer Financial Innovation Network (ACFIN) to enhance coordination among federal and state regulators to facilitate financial innovation.

Initial state members of ACFIN are the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah. All state regulators have been invited to join.

The OCC has announced it will host two workshops at the Federal Reserve Bank of Los Angeles, October 22 and 23, for directors of institutions supervised by the OCC:

• The Compliance Risk workshop on October 22 focuses on the critical elements of an effective compliance risk management program. Topics of discussion include the Bank Secrecy Act, Flood Disaster Protection Act, Fair Lending, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Community Reinvestment Act, and other compliance hot topics.
• The Operational Risk workshop on October 23 focuses on the key components of operational risk—people, processes, and systems. The workshop also covers governance, third-party risk, vendor management, internal fraud, and cybersecurity.