Treasury official slams Florida ‘anti-woke’ law for ‘undermining’ BSA compliance
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2024-07-29T19:00:00
A Treasury Department official has warned that provisions of Florida’s “anti-woke” banking bill–and others like it–may “materially undermine” financial institutions’ compliance with federal anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) laws and U.S. sanctions.
Brian Nelson, Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, wrote in a July 18 letter that a new batch of state laws attempt to redefine “unsafe and unsound” banking practices in a way that conflicts with federal laws.
The Florida law prohibits “a financial institution’s reliance on any factor that is ‘not a quantitative … standard’ to determine which customers to serve or services to offer, further prohibiting consideration of a person’s ‘affiliations’ or ‘business sector’ to make these decisions,” Nelson wrote.
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