The Patriot Act

Patriot ActDepartment of the TreasuryAnti-Money Laundering
Identity Theft
Risk Management

The Patriot Act, and How It Applies to the Banking Industry:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a final rule on September 26, 2002, to implement Section 314 of the USA PATRIOT Act that adds sections 103.100 and 103.110 to the Bank Secrecy Act regulations. These sections establish procedures that encourage information sharing between governmental authorities and financial institutions, and among financial institutions themselves.

The new section 103.100 establishes a mechanism for law enforcement to communicate names of suspected terrorists and money launderers to financial institutions in return for securing the ability to promptly locate accounts and transactions involving those suspects. Financial institutions receiving names of suspects must search their account and transaction records for potential matches and report positive results to Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the manner and time frame specified in the request.

Each financial institution must designate a point of contact to receive information requests. FinCEN has prescribed that each financial institution supply point of contact information to its primary federal regulator. If you have not already done so, send by e-mail to FDICAdvisory@fdic.gov or by mail to FDIC, Special Activities Section, 550 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20429, the following information: name of institution, name of point of contact, title, mailing address, e-mail address, telephone number, and fax number. Changes in contact information must be promptly reported.

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