Reports must be made through FinCEN’s Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) eFiling system.
In cases where the client is a victim of fraud, you’re not filing on them, you’re filing on an unknown subject, so “you could file as ‘subject unknown,’” said Jeffrey Weiss, chief AML officer at TD Ameritrade.
As broker-dealers, custodians already are subject to reporting requirements. After the new rules take effect for RIA firms, advisors could be in trouble if they fail to report the same transactions as their custodians, the panel warned.
Advisors should look into and document any case that a custodian inquires about, Weiss said, adding, “We’re not going to tell you” when we report on a client.
But just because a custodian reports doesn’t mean the advisor should, Boudrot said. “You don’t see the whole picture that we might have,” she said.
Advisors should document what they did and why in a particular situation, she added.