Digital asset platform Anchorage Digital unveiled moves to bolster its Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering (BSA/AML) compliance staff less than a year removed from being called out by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for deficiencies in the area.
Among the moves, announced Tuesday, Anchorage Digital welcomed Mark duBose as its new chief compliance and risk officer, Dustin Palmer as interim BSA officer, and Mo Abdoolraman as interim head of know your customer (KYC). The hiring of duBose is pending regulatory approval, as is the promotion of Rachel Anderika from chief risk officer to chief operating officer.
Other new additions include Frieder Weichelt as chief information security officer (CISO); Daniel Sankey as head of financial intelligence unit; Scott Schwartz as deputy BSA officer, in addition to his responsibilities as Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) officer; and Jessica Perkins as enterprise risk management lead.
Anchorage Digital, the first digital asset bank to be issued a charter by the OCC, agreed to make improvements to its BSA/AML program after the Treasury Department agency announced its consent order in April 2022. The order found specific failures with Anchorage Digital’s customer due diligence procedures and procedures for monitoring suspicious activity.
Without admitting or denying the OCC’s findings, Anchorage Digital agreed to hire a BSA officer “vested with sufficient independence, authority, and resources to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of the position and ensure compliance with the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act and its implementing regulations,” per the order.
DuBose brings risk and compliance leadership experience from similar roles at Centre, Circle, Santander Bank, and Bank of America. He will join Anchorage Digital’s leadership team.
As interim BSA officer, Palmer will be focused on compliance practices and further development of AML controls. He brings a background in financial crimes compliance and currently serves as managing director at Berkeley Research Group’s financial institutions advisory service.
Abdoolraman previously served as senior manager, financial crime and identity at Chime and held vice president roles in compliance at Goldman Sachs and Citi. New CISO Weichelt previously served as chief risk officer at crypto platform BitGo.
Anchorage Digital noted that, along with strengthening its team, it revamped its policies, procedures, and processes “to keep pace with the complexity of the ecosystem” and compliance requirements. The bank said it is also enhancing its technology capabilities to “enable monitoring transactions in a programmatic, scalable way.”
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