All financial institutions are required to establish and maintain a Bank Secrecy Act compliance program. Therefore, it's essential that all leaders in your organization understand the requirements, so you can support the program and understand your role. In this program, we'll dive into the basics of the BSA's compliance program requirements. We'll go over procedures and practices, the customer identification program, and conducting customer due diligence, or CDD.

It's likely not a surprise to you that cash or currency is no longer playing a leading role in our economy. Most financial exchanges today depend on a complex system of electronic fund transfers instead of cash. In this program, we're going to focus on how some people exploit that system to launder money. For the sake of simplicity, we're going to refer to all of these electronic transactions simply as wire transfers, which play an integral role in the second phase of money laundering: layering. Here, we'll cover how to stay vigilant against the use of wire transfers in money laundering schemes.

A money services business, or MSB, refers to a non-bank that cashes checks, exchanges currency, issues travelers' checks, or sells money orders. So, it's basically any business that provides banking services but doesn't accept deposits. So how do MSBs work when it comes to compliance with BSA/AML regulations, and what does it have to do with you? That's what this course is all about. In this program, we'll dive into MSBs so you can better understand how they operate and the necessary due diligence you'll need to do with your own customers who may use MSBs.

Typically, when an organization or individual makes a money exchange, like withdrawing or depositing $10,000, you have to file a currency transaction report, or CTR, to help prevent money laundering, but there are exceptions. In this program, we'll walk through the guidelines provided by BSA/AML regulations for exempting certain businesses from currency transaction reporting requirements. We'll go over the two categories of exempt businesses: Phase I and Phase II. We'll talk about which businesses fall into these categories, and why.

The USA PATRIOT Act first established the concept of "enhanced" due diligence in regard to organizations that pose a higher risk of money laundering or terrorist financing. Under the law, these businesses require a different level of evaluation than other organizations. Your existing customer due diligence (CDD) program already outlines what information will be collected and analyzed as part of the customer risk profile. So, for customers requiring enhanced due diligence, you'll be conducting a deeper analysis. In this course, we'll explore the types of customers that require enhanced due diligence and go over what that process looks like.

In this course, we'll discuss several case studies involving money laundering schemes. Without giving specific names and financial institutions, we'll share several real-life stories provided by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. Hopefully, by walking through some of these scenarios, you'll gain a better understanding of the events, risks, and consequences associated with money laundering.

One of the primary goals of the USA PATRIOT Act is to break down the barriers preventing government agencies from sharing information with each other and with non-governmental groups. For banking institutions, provisions in this act changed what types of data banks were allowed to share with law enforcement and with each other. In this program, we'll dive a bit deeper into what you need to know about the USA PATRIOT Act and what's required of your team. First, there are two types of information sharing outlined in section 314 of the USA PATRIOT Act. You don't need to know the specific language, but it's important that you can identify these information requests by name.