NCUA Cancels Letter to CUs in light of PATRIOT Act Rules

ALEXANDRIA, Va.-NCUA issued a Letter to Credit Unions (03-CU-10) withdrawing a previous letter regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ Control List in deference to new USA PATRIOT Act regulations. NCUA Chairman Dennis Dollar signed a Letter to Credit Unions last month canceling Letter No. 01-CU-18, dated October 2001, which included a form for credit unions to submit if a member matched a name on the FBI’s Control List. “Credit unions should no longer complete the form attached to that Letter,” the new letter advised. The FBI, in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, created the Control List to disburse a common list of individuals or entities of interest. Financial institutions then had to search their records for any matches. “Information requests associated with section 314(a) of the USA PATRIOT Act replace the Control List process,” NCUA’s most recent letter explained. Credit unions should have provided contact information regarding the new regulations with their March 31, 2003, Call Report, as advised in Regulatory Alert No. 03-RA-03 In related news, Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Wayne Abernathy reassured the industry that the department was not reopening its PATRIOT Act regulations by issuing a Notice of Inquiry on two items included in the final regulation. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) had requested that Treasury rethink its views on retaining copies of the documents used to verify an accountholder’s identity and the use of the matricula card. Under the final rule, credit unions and other financial institutions need only check a box that they did verify the identity and are allowed to decide for themselves whether to accept the matricula consular, and other foreign identification cards, as valid forms of identification. Sensenbrenner expressed his preference for the proposed regulation, which would have required financial institutions to store copies of the identification documents for five years. The issue came up during a House Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee hearing on the underserved at the end of June, where Abernathy said he felt financial institutions would best know what type of identification to use to verify an accountholder’s identity. -