Bankers: How to provide services to money services businesses–safely
The term money services business covers a broad range of financial service providers. These companies serve diverse groups of clients provide disparate services and range in scope from neighborhood grocers cashing checks to multinational firms involved in high volume high value cross-border transactions.
But they’ve recently shared one common problem: bankers are afraid to do business with them. The Bank Secrecy Act ™ compliance requirements have caused banks to avoid this industry leaving many legitimate businesses without the banking services they need.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCE) lists money transmitters in its definition of money services businesses. It also includes the U.S. Postal Service plus four other types of financial service providers if they perform more than $1000 of these transactions for a single person on any day:
