On December 23, 2015, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a notice requesting public comment on two related regulatory impact assessments prepared in connection with proposed new customer due diligence requirements for financial institutions initially published by FinCEN on August 4, 2014. The proposed rule would amend existing Bank Secrecy Act regulations to clarify and strengthen customer due diligence requirements for banks, broker-dealers, mutual funds and futures commission merchants and introducing brokers in commodities primarily by imposing a new requirement under the BSA to identify the beneficial owners of legal entity customers, subject to certain exemptions. The regulatory impact assessment states that, to justify the anticipated compliance costs of the proposed rule, the rule would need to reduce the estimated annual flow of illicit proceeds (which FinCEN reports as approximately $300 billion) by 0.45% per year from 2016-2024. In addition, the initial regulatory flexibility analysis concludes that the proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on the small entities that would be required to comply with the rule. Comments are due by January 25, 2016.
The full text of the FinCEN notice published in the Federal Register is available at: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR- 2015-12-24/pdf/2015-32378.pdf.
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