CUNA, in conjunction with the National Association of State Credit Union Supervisors (NASCUS), conducted its annual Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) Certification Conference in Louisville, Ky. last week. The conference provided the 293 attendees with the latest information on BSA, anti-money laundering and Office of Foreign Assets Control compliance issues.

Next year’s conference will be held Nov. 15 to 21 in Tempe, Ariz.

Topics covered during the conference include:

• A breakdown of top BSA/AML themes from the year by Brian Knight, NASCUS executive vice president/general counsel. These include: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (FinCEN) beneficial ownership rule, enforcement actions, human trafficking, elder abuse, cannabis banking, crypto currency and de-risking;
• A look at how serving money service businesses (MSB) provides income opportunities, but also bring with them regulatory risks. The presenters also covered what credit unions will need to have in place should they decide to serve MSBs;
• Insight into common avenues credit unions might overlook while complying with BSA requirements from attorney David Reed. These include remote deposit capture, shared branching, interest on lawyers trust accounts (IOLTAs) and credit union service organizations;
• How credit unions, as financial institutions, are ideally positioned in many cases to expose human trafficking, and what steps credit union can take to identify and report these crimes to law enforcement;
• A look at synthetic fraud, one of the fastest-growing types of identity fraud. This occurs when criminals create fictional identities to apply for credit;
• How de-risking due to BSA/AML compliance issues is affecting access to financial services for certain communities, and how this creates opportunities for credit unions; and
• The five keys to writing an effective suspicious activity report (SAR) narrative, the who, what, when, where and why.

In addition to CompBlog, CUNA’s Compliance Community contains discussion boards and a number of other resources for credit union compliance professionals around the country.