As part of its ongoing effort to combat money laundering activity, the U.S. Treasury Department has released data on marijuana businesses from banks, in addition to the industries it already tracks, including liquor stores, convenience stores, casinos and auto dealers. We have formally sent a proposal to the White House to start collecting. .
In a notice published in the Federal Register late last week, the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said it had completed initial procedural steps on the plan and would be open to a final round of public comments as the White House. I was. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) conducts the review.
The OCC first announced the proposal in June, saying it would track marijuana businesses as part of the annual Risk Summary Form (RSF) that financial institutions must submit. This is seen as another sign that the federal government is recognizing the state’s legal cannabis market, even though marijuana is still a federally regulated substance.
“RSF collects data about various Products, Services, Customers and Territories (PSCs),” the latest notice states. To that end, the Treasury Department said it wanted to add “marijuana-related businesses” to its list of markets to monitor, along with five other new categories, including crypto assets and ATM operators.
Via OCC.
The ministry said its money laundering risk system would “enhance the ability of inspectors and bank management to identify and assess” risks “associated with bank products, services, customers and locations.”
As new products and services emerge, “banks’ assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing risks should also evolve.” Therefore, these changes to the data collection process will allow it to “identify the agency and areas within the agency that may be at increased risk and allocate testing resources accordingly,” the agency said. I’m here.
The final public comment period on the proposed changes is open until October 11th.
In August, the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) submitted comments following the initial announcement of the proposal. The organization said, “We are pleased that the OCC recognizes the impact that marijuana-related businesses are having on our financial system.”
The NCIA said the ministry would “improve data collection in this relatively new sector, increase transparency into the industry for regulators, reduce the administrative burden on banks, and allow more agencies to serve the industry.” “We will support efforts to enable the choice of
“The challenges arising from the lack of banking are not limited to the cannabis business, but also affect the entities that choose to be involved in and serve the cannabis business, including the financial institutions themselves. , the MLR Risk Assessment is an important tool for the OCC’s Bank Secrecy/Anti-Money Laundering and OFAC supervisory activities, as it enables institutions to better identify institutions and areas within institutions that may be at increased risk. and investigative resources can be assigned.”
How will the information collected by the RSF (which, if approved, will require financial service providers to report both the number of marijuana business accounts and their overall volume) is processed by the OCC after it is submitted by the bank? It is not immediately clear whether it will be analyzed or disseminated, but the new notice said the data will allow the agency to “better identify institutions, and areas within institutions, that may be at increased risk and We can allocate inspection resources accordingly.”
Information on the number of financial institutions dealing with cannabis-related businesses has already been reported through Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), which banks and credit unions are required to file under existing guidance, and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ( FinCEN) publishes its data. Quarterly.
Near the end of 2021, the number of banks reporting working with marijuana businesses rose again, according to FinCEN’s March update.
As Congress works to end federal cannabis bans and advance legislation to reform banking policies related to the marijuana industry, the government will ensure that cannabis remains a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act. Despite the fact that it exists, it tacitly acknowledged its existence and normalized it.
For example, the U.S. Census Bureau announced last year that it would begin collecting and compiling data on the income that states make from legal marijuana.
The move to add cannabis questions to annual reports filed by states builds on another notice the federal agency posted last year outlining the incorporation of state-level cannabis tax data into quarterly reports. .
Meanwhile, in 2021, the U.S. Economic Classification and Policy Committee, comprising the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recommended policy changes to include cannabis businesses as regulated. Officially designated in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). NAICS is used to categorize and compile employment and market data for industries across the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
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