The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will hold four public meetings in July and August to give members of the financial services industry an opportunity to discuss the three proposed regulations announced on May 21, 1997. The regulations are aimed at preventing and detecting money laundering, and affect money services businesses (MSBs), such as money transmitters; traveler’s check and money order issuers and sellers; retail currency exchangers; check cashers; and issuers of stored value services ("e-money products").
The upcoming meetings are designed to give individuals and businesses a chance to raise issues concerning this regulatory process and to explain how these rules would affect their commercial operations. These businesses serve millions of Americans and handle transactions valuing about $200 billion per year through approximately 160,000 outlets nationwide.
The first meeting will be held at the Tycon Conference Center, 2070 Chain Bridge Road, Vienna, Virginia, on July 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The primary focus of this meeting is the first proposed regulation which would define money services businesses and require these companies to register with the Department of the Treasury and to maintain a current list of their agents. There also will be an hour and a half at the end of each session to discuss the other two proposed rules in order to provide as broad and convenient an opportunity as possible for interested persons to participate.
"It is a challenge, first to accurately define, then to craft appropriate anti-money laundering rules for this important but diverse and little understood segment of the financial services industry," said Stanley E. Morris, Director of FinCEN. "We need to hear the concerns of the industry to ensure that the regulations are workable. The proposed rules are intended to make life difficult only for money launderers and their accomplices, not the industry."
The second meeting will be held on July 28th in New York City (location to be determined) and will focus on the new rules’ affects on money transmitters and their agents. The proposed rules require them to: report transactions in currency or monetary instruments of at least $750 in connection with the transmission or other transfer of funds to any person outside the United States; report suspicious money laundering activity; and register with the Department of the Treasury.
The third meeting, on August 1 will be held in San Jose, California, (location to be determined) and will focus on the registration of issuers of stored value products. The fourth meeting will take place in Chicago on August 11 (location to be determined) and will concentrate on the rule which requires issuers, sellers, and redeemers, of money orders and traveler’s checks, to report suspicious transactions involving potential money laundering.
The meetings are not intended as a substitute for FinCEN’s request for written comments on these rules, but rather to help make the comment process as interactive and productive as possible. The sessions will be recorded, and the transcript of the meetings will be available for public inspection and copying.
Individuals interested in attending should contact Ms. Steele at (703) 905-3819 or Ms. Robb at (703) 905-3770. Additional information on the meetings will be available on FinCEN’s Web site at www.fincen.gov, in the "What’s New" section. Information can also be obtained by calling FinCEN’s Information telephone line at (703) 905-3848.