- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2024-09-13T15:37:00
The Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ordered Wells Fargo to make “comprehensive corrective actions” to its Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering and U.S. sanctions programs, along with receive permission from the OCC to offer new products and services or enter new geographic markets with “medium or high” BSA/AML and sanctions risks.
The OCC said that it has identified deficiencies in a number of BSA/AML and sanctions controls at Wells Fargo, including in “suspicious activity and currency transaction reporting, customer due diligence, and the bank’s customer identification and beneficial ownership programs,” according to a press release Thursday. Wells Fargo must develop a BSA/AML and sanctions action plan to address the issues within 120 days.
The formal agreement restricts Wells Fargo’s ability to offer new products and services, or enter new geographic markets with a medium or high BSA/AML or Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions “inherent risk without receiving a prior written determination of no supervisory objection from the Examiner-in-Charge,” the OCC said.
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Global sanctions rules are increasing rapidly, as are tools to detect and punish those who break them. In response, the U.K. government is creating a new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation to investigate and penalize those who break sanctions rules.
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