Regulators hit Miami Gardens credit union with cease and desist order

 

 

By Brian Bandell

South Florida Business Journal

Federal regulators issued a cease and desist order against North Dade Community Development Credit Union for violations of anti-money laundering laws.

Such enforcement actions against credit unions are rare. This is the only cease and desist order issued by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) so far this year.

The credit union has only $5.8 million in assets. It was “well capitalized” on June 30, an improved from its “undercapitalized” status a year ago.

The NCUA order on Aug. 29 gave it 30 days to suspend all transactions for money services businesses that aren’t within its geographic area of membership. Credit unions are only allowed to deal with customers in pre-defined geographic areas. In the case of North Dade Community Development, the area is the north-central part of the county.

The regulatory order also told the credit union to stop all business with money service businesses until it implements adequate Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering and Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) compliance. This includes establishing criteria for identifying high-risk members, detecting when transactions involved prohibited countries or individuals, and timely filing suspicious activity reports and currency transaction reports.

It was given 30 days to find an employee responsible for this job, conditional upon approval by regulators

Michael Hearns an Anti Money Laundering specialist with over 24 years of AML experience can also be found at:

http://.launderingmoney.com and on twitter at: http://twitter.com/#!/LaunderingMoney also on http://moneylaunderingworld.blogspot.com