Money Laundering

The Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council (FFIEC) released the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/Anti-Money Laundering Examination Manual to ensure consistent application of the act to commercial banks, savings associations and credit unions ( www.fdic.gov/news ). In it the FFIEC prescribes uniform principles, standards and report forms for federal banking regulators. The manual, which does not set new standards, is a compilation of existing regulatory requirements, supervisory expectations and sound practices. For example, its guidelines will better enable examiners to evaluate banks’ compliance with federal requirements, regardless of organizational size or line of business. In collaboration with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which administers the BSA, the banking regulators—the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision—will begin employing the manual’s procedures in the third quarter of 2005.