Amendments to NFA Interpretive Notice 9045—Compliance Rule 2-9: FCM and IB Anti-Money Laundering Program now effective - 19 June 2020

NFA Compliance Rule 2-9(c) and Interpretive Notice 9045—FCM and IB Anti-Money Laundering Program require all futures commission merchants (FCM) and introducing brokers (IB) to develop and implement an anti-money laundering (AML) program reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and its implementing regulations. This includes obligations related to the Customer Identification Program (CIP) and Beneficial Ownership (BO). NFA recently amended its Interpretive Notice to incorporate guidance set forth by the CFTC in consultation with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in CFTC Interpretative Letter No. 19-18. This guidance grants relief from the CIP and BO requirements to IBs that do not introduce an account to an FCM and do not have customers for purposes of the CIP rule (voice broker IBs).

These amendments, which are effective immediately, clarify that voice broker IBs are not required to establish and implement a CIP or apply BO requirements with respect to their voice broker business. However, voice broker IBs must continue to conduct suspicious activity reviews and comply with other applicable NFA requirements using the information available to them.