The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) has launched a new program for its licensed currency exchanges that seeks to mitigate risk and improve efficiency.
The program will focus on risk-based assessments to determine overall financial health when examining Illinois currency exchanges. This new system will help avert problems for troubled currency exchanges, improving the strength of the industry, and offer better consumer protections, officials say.
“By switching to a risk-based examination model for our currency exchanges, we are afforded a closer look at operational aspects from an informational gathering vantage point,” Bryan Schneider, IDFPR secretary, said.
“Historically, assessing the types of checks cashed, who is presenting them and ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering laws was not part of our review,” Schneider said. “By incorporating these elements into the examination, we look to focus our resources on the troubled currency exchanges, while affording those entities in good standing the potential for reprieve from the annual examination process.”
Now, the examination also includes reviews of business operations, corporate checks, money orders, Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering compliance, and ATMs. This is in addition to what it currently reviews — cash count, bank reconciliation, various reports and financial statements.
“The Community Currency Exchange Association applauds the efforts of the IDFPR in their efforts to make the audits of our stores more in touch with the needs of today’s regulatory requirements,” Martin Lieberman, president of the Community Currency Exchange Association, said. “As an association we pledge our full cooperation in seeing that this program is successful.”
The Currency Exchange Audit Program began in January 2017 and will continue indefinitely as IDFPR adjusts currency exchange audit procedures to provide for a smooth transition for all currency exchange licensees.