The BSA examination process is intended to assess the effectiveness of a financial institution’s BSA compliance program and the institution’s compliance with the regulatory requirements related to the BSA. A regulatory examination should cover a review of the risk management process, an analysis of the institution’s independent testing system, a detailed and thorough of the BSA compliance program, transaction testing where appropriate, a specific review of the suspicious activity identification, monitoring, and reporting systems, and a review of IT systems used in the BSA process. This webinar will discuss ways you can prepare for the regulatory examination by reviewing your previous examination or audit reports, available work papers related to the examinations, and management’s responses to identified BSA issues.  You will also want to review any correspondence between your institution and its regulators, law enforcement agencies related to BSA compliance, FinCEN, and the IRS. You should also review prior to the examination, all of your IT systems and processes, all of the reports you are required to provide to regulators, your processes for complying with Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC), and especially ensure that your Suspicious Activity Reporting processes and Currency Transaction Reporting processes fully comply with all laws and requirements.

This webinar will discuss how your financial institution should prepare for a BSA regulatory examination. We will address the requirement, need, and importance of an examination, how you can use the results of an examination to improve your organization's operations, how to assign responsibilities for your staff, and how to the phases of the examination. Attending this webinar will help you understand that examinations are a normal part of the regulatory process and are no different than an internal or external audit. All of these reviews, examinations, and audits, provide your institution with a third-party review of your operations, provide you with suggestions of how to improve your operations and point out your level of compliance with AML/CFT laws and regulations. The examination process should not be thought of as a negative event, but as a positive process for your institution to find out how compliant the organization is, help you identify areas that need to be improved, and provide you with expert knowledge of industry standards currently used by other financial institutions. Regulatory examinations and audits are a requirement that will always be a part of the supervision process for all financial institutions and as such should be accepted and used to improve your business operations.