On May 28, the National Futures Association (NFA) submitted to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed amendments to NFA Interpretive Notice 9045 (Interpretive Notice) regarding the anti-money laundering (AML) Programs that introducing brokers (IBs) (and futures commission merchants) are required to implement. The Interpretive Notice provides that the AML programs adopted by IBs must include, inter alia, written customer identification program (CIP) procedures designed to allow the IB to form a reasonable belief that it knows the true identity of each customer.

The proposed amendment to the Interpretive Notice incorporates recent guidance from the CFTC, found in CFTC Letter No. 19-18, which provides that voice broker IBs that negotiate/facilitate block futures and cleared swap transactions do not have customers or accounts for purposes of the CIP requirements. The limited relief from maintaining CIP procedures does not otherwise relieve IBs from the requirement to adopt and implement an AML program. In particular, these IBs are required to conduct suspicious activity reviews and comply with all other applicable NFA requirements using the information available to them.

Absent additional review by the CFTC, the NFA may establish an effective date for the amendments as early as 10 days after receipt of the submission by the CFTC.

A copy of the proposed amendments is available here.