The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 instituted new regulations on banks and other financial institutions in the fight against financial crimes. As Lead Counsel for Anti-Money Laundering at the Federal Deposit Insurance Company, Partner Constantine Lizas of our Washington, D.C. office helped draft those new regulations.

Constantine had the opportunity recently to talk about the changes ahead for banks amid the redoubled enforcement effort with reporter Katie Anderson of Buffalo Business First. The new legislation puts priorities on efforts to curb corruption, cybercrime, foreign and domestic terrorist financing, fraud, transnational criminal organization activity, drug trafficking, human trafficking and proliferation financing, Constantine told Katie.

“At minimum, every bank in the country, including every bank in Buffalo, will need to at least take a look at their policies and procedures and controls and need to make changes,” Constantine said. “They’ll need to tweak their programs to make sure they’re covering those national priorities. In the future, the banks will be examined explicitly on how they have reviewed the priorities and how they have integrated the priorities into their own anti-money laundering compliance programs.”

The Buffalo Business First article, which may require a login, is here: https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2022/08/25/fdic-attorney.html