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Wire Transfer Tapping
U.S. anti-money laundering laws are already so complex and so intense that the Florida International Bankers Association blames the laws for a severe contraction in the industry statewide. Compliance costs associated with the Patriot Act, Bank Secrecy and other laws "are leading some banks with Florida operations to reduce or even withdraw from the international banking services market," according to the group. It reports total employment in the industry in Florida has plummeted 5,700 over the past five years.
Adding to the Florida bankers' displeasure is the Treasury Department's latest proposal: Requiring banks and other financial companies that handle international wire transfers to hand over details of those transactions to the government. Currently, banks retain transfer data only in case the feds ask for them later. New regulations under consideration by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson would require financial institutions to send in data about every in the news international wire transfer -- some 500 million transactions a year nationwide.
The regs would have a big impact on Florida because of the state's immigrant population, which wires money to home countries.
But financial criminals, including money launderers and those financing terrorists, also find wire transfers convenient for moving money around the globe. "Right now, Treasury and government officials around the world are of the opinion that international wire transfer provides the most readily accessible conduit for these types of crimes," says Shutts & Bowen partner Gary M. Bagliebter, a certified anti-money laundering specialist and former federal prosecutor. Treasury officials say they believe the comprehensive data collection could help prevent and track money laundering and terrorist financing. Bagliebter says it could be an uncomfortable trade-off -- and not just in costs to the financial institutions.
"The government is going to have this huge, huge storehouse of information," Bagliebter says. "How it might be used and the abuses it could be subject to are of great concern to the financial institutions and should be to the customers, too."
