On March 7, 2016, US Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry discussed the importance of international cooperation and comprehensive cross-agency, cross-border approaches to cybersecurity and the fight to prevent money laundering. Comptroller Curry also addressed the issue of risk re-evaluation, commonly known as de-risking, which involves banks evaluating the BSA/AML risks posed by their customers and foreign correspondent banks. He noted that while these relationships may pose legitimate risks, there may be important reasons to preserve such relationships, a decision that the OCC does not dictate but leaves to the banks. Comptroller Curry noted that the OCC is in the process of gathering information through the supervisory process as to how banks conduct re-evaluation, including how they implement policies and procedures for evaluating customer risks, whether banks have policies on risk re-evaluation and how decisions to terminate such relationships are made and reviewed. He noted that the OCC may issue guidance upon completing this review.
Comptroller Curry's speech is available at: http://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/speeches/2016/pub-speech-2016-25.pdf.
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