Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary to be, Prioritizes AML Regulations

Janet Yellen, incoming Secretary of the US Treasury has announced that AML legislation is the most important legislation since 2001.

Finance Committee has unanimously favoured Janet Yellen as the new Secretary of the US Treasury, which increased her chances to be supported by the full Senate vote. Yellen will be implementing Biden’s 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief packages, focusing on inequalities in wealth, raising corporation taxes, and rebuilding the economy of the United States.

She has thanked the Congress for passing the laws regarding anti-money laundering measures and transparency in the corporate sector. She has declared shell companies to be a significant issue for the US.

“The act that was recently passed by Congress gives us an enormous potent tool to address this problem, we will try to get up and running as quickly as possible and devote ourselves to building that database so that we can address these issues and we will be certainly looking to give this very high priority,” Yellen said.

Before the Corporate Transparency ACT, it was the duty of the banks to identify the beneficial owners but after the legislation, the reporting of the identity of the beneficial owners will be done to the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

After the initial steps of establishing the new database, the US Treasury will publicize the implementation of the new regulation and renew the existing FinCEN due diligence requirements.

Yellen also said, “I think we really need to examine ways in which we can curtail their use and make sure that anti-money laundering doesn’t occur through those channels. If confirmed, I intend to work closely with the Federal Reserve Board and the other federal banking and securities regulators on how to implement an effective regulatory framework for these and other fintech innovations.”