WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - U.S. financial regulators and an arm of the Treasury Department said on Friday they had signed an agreement to increase information-sharing in an effort to tighten up on bank violations of anti-money laundering laws.
"This marks another step in strengthening Bank Secrecy Act compliance and protecting the U.S. financial system from corruption by terrorists and other criminals," said Stuart Levey, Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
U.S. bank regulators have come under increased criticism recently for lax oversight of the industry's compliance with laws meant to curtail money laundering and other "suspicious" transactions. FinCEN, Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, is charged with overseeing the regulators' administration of U.S. anti-laundering laws.
The nine-page agreement between the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision and FinCEN requires the agencies provide annual and quarterly reports on their examinations of banks for money laundering weaknesses.
In return, FinCEN will give the agencies' quarterly reports summarizing the data compiled from all the agencies and it will give the affected agency prior notice before it takes an enforcement action against one of its financial institutions.
Source: Reuters
