The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition (FACT Coalition) submitted comments for the record to the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy on their hearing recent hearing on corporate transparency. The full letter can be read below or downloaded here.
Dear Chairman Hensarling and Ranking Member Waters:
Thank you for your diligent work crafting legislation to improve corporate transparency by requiring companies to disclose the identities of individuals who control and profit from the company at the time of its incorporation. We write to express our support for this change, which would prevent these individuals from using anonymous shell companies to evade accountability,
and to convey the importance of making this information available to state and local enforcement.
Anonymous shell companies are the vehicle of choice for a wide variety of bad actors. Drug cartels and human trafficking operations have long understood the benefits of corporate secrecy to launder money. Terror groups have learned these lessons, and today illicit financing and evading sanctions are as much a part of their strategy as any bombing or attack. Corrupt leaders in nations around the world steal public funds to prop up their regimes, undermine democratic institutions and ideals, and create internal and regional instability.
Chairmen Leutkemeyer and Pearce, Ranking Members Clay and Perimutter and members of the subcommittee, I am honored to have this opportunity to present testimony today regarding FinCEN’s Customer Due Diligence Rule. I am Dalia F. Martinez, Executive Vice President and Corporate Bank Secrecy Act Officer for International Bank of Commerce. IBC Bank–Laredo is a member of International Bancshares Corporation (NASDAQ: IBOC), a $12.2 billion multi-bank financial holding company headquartered in Laredo, Texas, with 192 branches and more than 294 ATMs serving 90 communities in Texas and Oklahoma. I am speaking to you today representing the Mid-size Bank Coalition of America, the voice of 88 community banks with headquarters in 34 States. MBCA banks are primarily between $10 billion and $50 billion in assets with more than 10,000 branches in all 50 states, with deposits of $1.2 trillion. MBCA banks represent, service, and support millions of customers.
Gary Kalman, the executive director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition, testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit on Friday, April 27, 2018 at a hearing regarding the implementation of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (FinCEN) rule on Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions.
Switzerland, the United States, and the Cayman Islands are the world’s biggest contributors to financial secrecy, according to the latest edition of the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index.
