PATRIOT Officer helps ensure automatic compliance to the Patriot Act.
The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) has been in effect since 1970 and has been revised several times to strengthen the government’s ability to fight financial crimes. As a result of the terrorist attacks against the US, the government further tightened its monitoring of suspicious financial transactions, funds transfer activities, foreign assets, and customer identification through financial institutions in order to combat terrorists. On October 26, 2001, President George Bush signed the PATRIOT Act into law. This new bill increased penalties up to $1,000,000 per transaction on financial institutions for violations of the BSA, the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) policy, and the PATRIOT Act requirements. Strengthening and enforcing these regulations has become a top priority and, as a result, regulators have greatly broadened the scope of compliance verification during their examinations.
For many financial institutions, detecting suspicious activity has been more of an art than a science. In addition to the suspicious activities reported by tellers, someone with experience might look over currency transactions and attempt to detect suspicious activities. But because of the increased regulatory scrutiny, this approach is no longer sufficient, and financial institutions that use so-called manual processes to meet BSA, OFAC, and the PATRIOT Act requirements may face the risks of civil and criminal penalties, reputation damage, and regulators’ cease-and-desist orders as a possible result of a violation. The magnitude of these risks usually grows exponentially as a financial institution grows.
To assist clients in meeting stringent regulatory requirements, and to help protect them against substantial and severe penalties, FSI has partnered with Global Vision to offer PATRIOT Officer, a comprehensive product that provides users with the tools they need in order to adhere to the new stricter federal regulations.
- Features and Benefits of PATRIOT Officer
- Keeps seven to ten years of detection records, exemption records, reasons for not filing specific reports, and all the reports that have been filed with FinCEN.
- Produces various reports for regulators’ examinations, risk management, and auditing purposes.
- Helps to detect suspicious check deposit and withdrawal activities to avoid check kiting.
- BSA Section 314 compliance environment.
- Anti-money laundering database.
- Web-based access to data, queries, and reports.
- Sophisticated customer/account linkage algorithms.
- Automated production of CTRs and SARs.
PATRIOT Officer has received the endorsement the American Bankers Association and the New York Bankers Association. In addition, it is endorsed by more than 60% of core banking system vendors and data centers. On December 19, 2005, Global Vision Systems issued a press release announcing the endorsements of the various groups currently using PATRIOT Officer.
For additional information on PATRIOT Officer, please contact Patrick Schunke.