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Treasury Won’t Back MSB Safe Harbor for Banks: OCC Official
By Kira Zalan
printA U.S. Treasury Department official told banking representatives at a recent roundtable meeting not to expect safe harbor protections for providing accounts to money services businesses, according to multiple sources. Despite concerns that the businesses have been unduly turned away by risk-averse banks, department officials believe that offering such legal protection would reduce institutional compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) rules, a high-ranking regulator with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) told meeting attendees in January. The remarks came in response to questions about the possibility of shielding banks from regulatory fines and other penalties as the U.S....
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