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The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Department of Treasury has issued a statement to provide clarity to banks on how to apply a risk-based approach to conducting customer due diligence on independent ATM owners or operators.
According to the statement, some independent ATM owners and operators have reported difficulty in obtaining and maintaining access to banking services, which jeopardizes the financial services they provide, including to persons in underserved markets.
FinCEN reaffirmed that the level of money laundering and financing of terrorism risk associated with independent ATM owner or operators varies, and that these bank customers do not automatically present a higher risk
FinCEN continues to encourage banks to manage customer relationships and mitigate risks based on those customer relationships rather than declining to provide banking services to entire categories of customers.
The National ATM Council reported that the FinCEN statement comes as a direct result of the council’s governmental affairs advocacy.