Company: WTFCN
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001015328-25-000093
Chunk: 23

Company: WINTRUST FINANCIAL CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 23
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 for Real Estate Lending Policies.

14

Anti-Money Laundering Programs

The Bank Secrecy Act (the “BSA”) and USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (the “USA PATRIOT Act”) contain anti-money laundering (“AML”) and financial transparency provisions intended to detect, and prevent the use of the U.S. financial system for, money laundering and terrorist financing activities. The BSA, as amended by the USA PATRIOT Act, requires financial institutions, including banks, to undertake activities including maintaining an AML program, verifying the identity of customers, monitoring for and reporting suspicious transactions, reporting on cash transactions exceeding specified thresholds, and responding to requests for information by regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies. Each of our subsidiary banks is subject to the BSA and, therefore, is required to provide its employees with AML training, designate an AML compliance officer and undergo periodic, independent audits to assess the effectiveness of its AML program. We have implemented policies, procedures and internal controls that are designed to comply with these AML requirements. Bank regulators are focusing their examinations on AML compliance, and we will continue to monitor and augment, where necessary, our AML compliance programs. The federal banking agencies are required, when reviewing bank and bank holding company acquisition or merger applications, to take into account the effectiveness of the AML activities of the applicant.

The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (the “AMLA”), enacted on January 1, 2021 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, does not directly impose new requirements on banks, but requires the U.S. Treasury Department to issue National Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Priorities, and conduct studies and issue regulations that may, over the next few years, significantly alter some of the due diligence, recordkeeping and reporting requirements that the BSA and USA PATRIOT Act impose on banks. The AMLA also contains provisions that promote increased information-sharing and use of technology, and increases penalties for violations of the BSA and includes whistleblower incentives, both of which could increase the prospect of regulatory enforcement.

In an effort to increase transparency in the U.S. financial system and prevent shell entities from being used to launder money or hide assets, AMLA includes the Corporate Transparency Act (the “CTA”), which requires the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) to, among other things, establish a national beneficial ownership information registry. In September