On January 1, 2021, the United States enacted the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (NDAA) after the US House of Representatives and US Senate voted to override a presidential veto of the law. Included within the NDAA are a significant number of provisions related to anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), including provisions reforming the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), a collection of statutes underpinning most of the current AML regulatory framework. These amendments, many of which have been under consideration for years, represent the most substantial AML-related reforms enacted since at least the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. Below, we outline ten of the most significant AML provisions contained in the NDAA. Given the breadth of the reforms, it is particularly important for US “financial institutions” – including money services businesses (MSBs) and other non-traditional financial institutions subject to the BSA – to carefully review the Act to understand how their compliance obligations may have changed or may change in the future as the Act is implemented via regulation.
Continue Reading Ten Key Takeaways from the NDAA’s AML Reforms