Key takeaways

• On June 20, 2016, the New York Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”) published a final rule requiring certain New York-chartered and -regulated institutions to enhance elements of their Bank Secrecy Act /anti-money laundering compliance programs.
• The final rule imposes a number of stringent requirements but is modified from a more problematic proposal. Perhaps most significantly, the NYDFS removed the requirement for a covered institution’s chief compliance officer to file an annual compliance certification, requiring instead either a board resolution or “compliance finding” by a “senior officer” with relevant responsibility. The NYDFS also dropped the explicit reference of potential criminal penalties for filing an “incorrect or false” certification.
• The Final Rule continues to contain NYDFS’ expectations for mandatory suspicious transaction monitoring and sanctions filtering programs, which now track more closely industry norms and practices. It remains to be seen how these requirements will be implemented in the NYDFS supervisory process.