MTRA’s 16th Annual Conference kicked off on November 12th in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a record number of regulators and industry officials attending. More than 250 regulators and industry officials are attending the four day event, representing 41 member states and money transmitters across the country. The conference was opened by MTRA President Joseph E. Rooney of Maryland who welcomed the conferees and new MTRA members and outlined the objectives and goals of the association. The conference included an examiners school, where a money transmission examination composite rating was discussed, a comprehensive plan for investigating applications for licensing money transmitters was presented, and the new IRS examination program was discussed by IRS and FinCEN officials. The conference also included separate as well as joint sessions of regulators and industry representatives. The keynote speaker, FinCEN Director Robert W. Werner, was unable to attend and was represented by Senior Advisor Deborah Silverman.
This year’s theme was entitled “Pathway to Progress”. The program provided an atmosphere to facilitate networking and exchange between and among industry and regulators. The key note address delivered on behalf of FinCEN Director Werner, emphasized the important role states are playing in licensing and examining money transmitters thereby diminishing the money laundering risks associated with unlicensed money transmitters. There were also timely presentations on microfinance, money transmission to Latin American countries, and money transmission through the internet and stored value cards. A panel consisting of federal and state bank regulators and Deborah Silverman, Senior Program Advisor for Policy at FinCEN, had a healthy discussion of the reasons banks are closing accounts of money transmitters and ways to address the problem.
President Joseph E. Rooney announced that MTRA is developing a formal curriculum for a week long school for examiners and analysts. The school will offer courses to examiners and analysts to train them in the conduct of comprehensive intrastate and interstate examinations of money transmitters. It will also help many states which do not examine money transmitters to develop examination programs. The first 5-day school will be held in early 2007, separate from a the annual conference, at a central location to accommodate travelers from across the country. President Rooney thanked the MTRA Board of Directors and MTRA Administrator Susan Shermer for the organization of the conference and announced that the 2007 conference will be placed soon on the MTRA web site.