The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress signed into law by United States President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. With its ten-letter abbreviation expanded, the Act's full title is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". The abbreviation, as well as the full title, have been attributed to Chris Cylke, a former staffer on the House Judiciary Committee. For further information on the background of the legislation, see the history of the Patriot Act.
An offshore bank is a bank regulated under international banking license, which usually prohibits the bank from establishing any business activities in the jurisdiction of establishment. Due to less regulation and transparency, accounts with offshore banks were often used to hide undeclared income. Since the 1980s, jurisdictions that provide financial services to nonresidents on a big scale, can be referred to as offshore financial centres. Since OFCs often also levy little or no tax corporate and/or personal income and offer, they are often referred to as tax havens.
In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Regulatory compliance describes the goal that organizations aspire to achieve in their efforts to ensure that they are aware of and take steps to comply with relevant laws, policies, and regulations. Due to the increasing number of regulations and need for operational transparency, organizations are increasingly adopting the use of consolidated and harmonized sets of compliance controls. This approach is used to ensure that all necessary governance requirements can be met without the unnecessary duplication of effort and activity from resources.
Know your customer, alternatively known as know your client or simply KYC, is the process of a business verifying the identity of its clients and assessing potential risks of illegal intentions for the business relationship. The term is also used to refer to the bank regulations and anti-money laundering regulations which govern these activities. Know your customer processes are also employed by companies of all sizes for the purpose of ensuring their proposed agents, consultants, or distributors are anti-bribery compliant. Banks, insurers and export creditors are increasingly demanding that customers provide detailed anti-corruption due diligence information.
The USA PATRIOT Act was passed by the United States Congress in 2001 as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. It has ten titles, each containing numerous sections. Title IV: Protecting the Border aims to prevent terrorism in the USA through immigration regulations. The provisions of the title generally increase the difficulty of entering the country for those known to have, or suspected of having, terrorist intent.
Title V: Removing obstacles to investigating terrorism is the fifth of ten titles which comprise the USA PATRIOT Act, an anti-terrorism bill passed in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks. It contains 8 sections regarding the capture and prosecution of terrorists.
The USA PATRIOT Act was passed by the United States Congress in 2001 as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. It has ten titles, each containing numerous sections. Title III: International Money Laundering Abatement and Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 is actually an act of Congress in its own right as well as being a title of the USA PATRIOT Act, and is intended to facilitate the prevention, detection and prosecution of international money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The title's sections primarily amend portions of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 and the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970.
A payable-through account (PTA) is a demand deposit account through which banking agencies located in the United States extend cheque writing privileges to the customers of other institutions, often foreign banks.
The USA PATRIOT Act was passed by the United States Congress in 2001 as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. It has ten titles, with the third title written to prevent, detect, and prosecute international money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The USA PATRIOT Act was passed by the United States Congress in 2001 as a response to the September 11 attacks in 2001. It has ten titles, with the third title written to prevent, detect, and prosecute international money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
A Customer Identification Program (CIP) is a United States requirement, where financial institutions need to verify the identity of individuals wishing to conduct financial transactions with them and is a provision of the USA Patriot Act. More generally known as know your customer the CIP requirement was implemented by regulations in 2003 which require US financial institutions to develop a CIP appropriate to the size and type of its business. The CIP must be incorporated into the bank's Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-money laundering compliance program, which is subject to approval by the financial institution's board of directors.
In financial regulation, "politically exposed person" (PEP) is a term describing someone who has been entrusted with a prominent public function. A PEP generally presents a higher risk for potential involvement in bribery and corruption by virtue of their position and the influence that they may hold. The terms politically exposed person and senior foreign political figure are often used interchangeably, particularly in international forums. Foreign official is a term for individuals deemed as government persons under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA, and although definitions are similar to PEP, there are quite a few differences and should not be used interchangeably. The term PEP is typically used referring to customers in the financial services industry, while 'foreign official' refers to the risks of third party relationships in all industries.
Bank regulation in the United States is highly fragmented compared with other G10 countries, where most countries have only one bank regulator. In the U.S., banking is regulated at both the federal and state level. Depending on the type of charter a banking organization has and on its organizational structure, it may be subject to numerous federal and state banking regulations. Apart from the bank regulatory agencies the U.S. maintains separate securities, commodities, and insurance regulatory agencies at the federal and state level, unlike Japan and the United Kingdom. Bank examiners are generally employed to supervise banks and to ensure compliance with regulations.
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is a 2010 United States federal law requiring all non-U.S. ('foreign') financial institutions (FFIs) to search their records for customers with indicia of 'U.S.-person' status, such as a U.S. place of birth, and to report the assets and identities of such persons to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. FATCA also requires such persons to self-report their non-U.S. financial assets annually to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on form 8938, which is in addition to the older and further redundant requirement to self-report them annually to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on form 114. Like U.S. income tax law, FATCA applies to U.S. residents and also to U.S. citizens and green card holders residing in other countries.
American Citizens Abroad (ACA) describes itself in public media as a "non-profit, non-partisan, volunteer association whose mission is to defend the rights of Americans living outside the United States border." It was founded in 1978. ACA has individual members around the world, and has developed a network of country contacts—volunteer American citizens who work without compensation in their respective host countries on behalf of not just the organization—in more than 50 countries, but to further ACA's causes.
First Merchant Bank OSH Ltd (FMB) was an offshore bank of Northern Cyprus established in 1993. As an offshore bank it was not regulated by the Central Bank of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and not allowed to trade with Northern Cyprus residents. In August 2004 the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) designated it "a financial institution of primary money laundering concern" under Section 311 of the Patriot Act. The Northern Cyprus Ministry of Finance withdrew FMB's banking license in February 2007, and by April 2008 the bank's Ireland-registered major shareholder and its subsidiaries appeared defunct.
The Qatar Financial Information Unit (QFIU) is a Qatari government regulatory agency responsible for financial intelligence efforts to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism. Like other national Financial Intelligence Units (FIU) around the world, it requires banks, investment companies, insurers and other financial institutions to report suspicious financial transactions. QFIU then analyzes the information and disseminates the relevant data to law enforcement authorities for further investigation and action.
