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FDIC Federal Register Citations
Community Bank and Trust
From: Southerland, Amy [mailto:Amy_Southerland@centraltechnology.net]
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 9:57 AM To: regs.comments@federalreserve.gov; Comments; regs.comments@occ.treas.gov; regs.comments@ots.treas.gov Subject: EGRPRA
Subject: Reporting,
Recordkeeping, and Disclosure Requirements
§103.22 (b)
Transactions of exempt persons,
(3) Initial
Designation of exempt person & (5) biennial filing with respect to certain
exempt persons.
These portions of
the Bank Secrecy Act require a bank to submit a report of Designation of
Exempt person both at the time of initial filing and bienially for Phase
II customers that we have elected to designate as exempt from reporting
requirements. My comment relates to the lack of availability of
information sharing between the Department of the Treasury and the banks
who have filed designations.
I took over as our
bank's BSA Officer in September of 2004. The previous person
responsible for BSA had since left the bank. Upon reviewing the file
that contained records of all prior designations, I was never certain
that I had all the forms that evidenced the bank had renewed
designations by the timing guidelines. I assumed they were filed since
it was not mentioned during a BSA examination but there should be an
effective and efficient way for a bank to obtain information on
designations that have been filed. A process should be developed that
would allow a bank to request the name of the customer exempted, the
date of either the initial designation or the date of the most recent
biennial refiling, and the reason for designating the customer as
exempt.
Examiners have
access to this information before they come in to conduct an exam.
There is an element of surprise when they have access to something that
I, myself cannot obtain. This is disconcerning because as the new BSA
officer it is not for lack of trying to comply with any provision of the
Bank Secrecy Act, it is simply that I may not know what a previous
employee has filed and I want to be able to obtain that information.
This relationship should work both ways to facilitate communication
between the Department of the Treasury and the banks. I realize that
myself and my bank could be held liable for the actions of a
previous employee whose recordkeeping left a little to be desired.
I have heard similar
stories from other BSA officers where they have been assigned the
position because someone has quit, passed away, or simply because
someone has been moved to another department within the bank. We are
left at the mercy to deal with the paperwork we inherit. We also know
that recordkeeping is a very important part of BSA and we are all trying
to comply...but we are not able to update our records since we don't
have access to this information. Our bank is part of a holding
company. A bank within our holding company was cited in a BSA exam for
not refiling a Phase II designation in a timely manner on one customer
and not filing an initial designation on another customer. In this
situation the previous BSA officer had passed away and they only had the
records she had maintained. In this instance the new BSA officer was
under the impression that the proper paperwork had been filed but could
not evidence that because she could not get copies of the filings. This
lead to a violation and extensive backfiling.
We need to make a
change. If bank's want to improve upon their bank's recordkeeping and
work to ensure all forms have been filed accurately and on time then
there should be an agency willing to work with those of us who are
requesting this information to try and comply with the recordkeeping
requirements and to ensure that we are all on the same playing field.
The examiners should not be the only ones with the ability to access the
information that WE provided, we should have access to our own
information.
Amy K. Southerland
Compliance Officer
Community Bank and Trust
9004 E. 61st Street South
Tulsa, OK. 74133
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Last Updated 04/05/2005 | Regs@fdic.gov |
