U.S. drafting customer due-diligence rules, to maintain risk-based approach - Treasury AML officials

The U.S. Treasury Department and its anti-money laundering unit have begun writing a proposed rule aimed at strengthening and clarifying what banks and broker-dealers must do to ensure they know the true identity of their customers. The requirements are intended to maintain a risk-based rather than prescriptive system, officials said at an industry conference in Miami last week. During a panel discussion at the Florida International Bankers Association anti-money laundering conference, Chip Poncy, director of Treasury's Office of Strategic Policy for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said the goal is to set customer due diligence obligations across industries "in a way that really does try to level the playing field and maintain a risk-based approach." Poncy added that Treasury has been gathering information about the most effective industry practices already in place at some institutions and it plans broadly to require all industries under its authority to adhere to similar