On January 28, 2016, the New York State Department of Financial Services announced that it is extending the comment period to March 31, 2016, for its proposed anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering regulation, known as the Transaction Monitoring and Filtering Program.

The regulation, proposed on December 1, 2015, requires maintenance by each regulated institution of: (i) a transaction monitoring program for the purpose of monitoring transactions after their execution for potential BSA/AML violations and suspicious activity reporting; and (ii) a watch list filtering program to prevent transactions, before their execution, that are prohibited by applicable sanctions, including OFAC and other sanctions lists, politically exposed persons lists and internal watch lists. The proposed regulation also includes an annual certification requirement under which senior financial executives must certify that their institutions have necessary systems in place to identify and prevent illicit transactions.

The proposed Transaction Monitoring and Filtering Program regulation is available at: http://www.dfs.ny.gov/legal/regulations/proposed/rp504t.pdf.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.