6th Annual AML and OFAC Symposium

Welcome to the ACAMS Carolinas Chapter 6th Annual AML and OFAC Symposium!

Date: Wednesday, September 9th, 2026

Location: Charlotte Convention Center

Info: We are thrilled to announce our 2026 Key Note speaker, Jamal El-Hindi. Jamal is a former U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Deputy Director, having previously served as the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Associate Director for Program Policy and Implementation. Jamal was also Treasury’s inaugural Chief Data Officer, with responsibility for enhancing management and use of all Treasury data.At FinCEN, Jamal led the operational, policy, and strategic planning aspects of the bureau, overseeing rulemaking, guidance and interpretation efforts, and counselling on enforcement, regulatory analysis, and industry outreach. Jamal has demonstrated experience with respect to new payment methods, including prepaid access and virtual currency. In his role at OFAC, Jamal led Treasury engagements with industry and other stakeholders regarding compliance with OFAC sanctions, rulemaking and licensing. Jamal currently serves as Counsel at Clifford Chance in Washington DC.

Info: Back and better than ever, this session will highlight session attendee’s pressing AML and OFAC related questions. How are you all utilizing AI “for good”? To what extent are your institutions implementing exceptive relief? How is your team responding proactively to the ever-changing geopolitical landscape? What keeps you up at night? A survey will be sent out prior to the symposium to solicit questions with additional opportunities to ask ad hoc questions live.

Info: Customer Risk Across the Lifecycle: From Onboarding to Exit -- Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) is central to customer risk management and requires coordination across EDD, AML investigations, sanctions, governance, and business lines as institutions expand across banking, fintech, and new payment ecosystems. This panel brings together financial crimes leaders from regional banks, global organizations, and fintech/crypto firms to discuss how customer risk is defined, operationalized, and governed across the customer lifecycle. Panelists will cover key risk factors—such as geography, occupation, product usage, and behavior—and how they drive decisions from onboarding and monitoring to escalation and relationship exit. Attendees will leave with practical guidance on aligning risk appetite, reducing duplication, and ensuring decisions are consistent, well-documented, and defensible.

Info: Data quality is a financial crimes risk—not just a technology issue. In this panel, leaders across business, risk, and technology will unpack the most common data breakdowns (late delivery, missing attributes, incorrect values), how they disrupt a program, and how data quality will power AI use. We’ll also cut through AI hype with practical, everyday ways to use AI—enhancing analysis, documentation, and consistency without major investment or “replacing” core systems.

Info: Tactical and Practical: Operational Agility in a Shifting Regulatory Landscape -- This session will provide a cross-industry perspective on how banks of varying sizes are responding to recent regulatory updates from the OCC and FinCEN, including the removal of reputational risk from supervisory programs, revisions to SAR FAQs, and the elimination of new account opening as a beneficial ownership triggering event. The discussion will explore the complexities of regulatory change management, emphasizing how to balance modernization efforts with sustained focus on high-risk areas and how to communicate these changes effectively to auditors and examiners. Industry experts will share candid insights into their implementation approaches and will help attendees build a network of trusted peers for future collaboration.

Info: From Any Town to Every Bank: Where Criminal Fraud Investigations Meet Compliance -- Join our dynamic panel of veteran HSI special agents and AML banking experts as they dive into today’s most pressing fraud threats, including elder abuse and romance scams. Discover how sophisticated, global poly-criminal networks are driving these schemes—turning local crimes exploiting the elderly into international criminal operations. Gain insights into how these schemes unfold at the local and national level, and how HSI and risk professionals are joining forces to combat fraud, protect vulnerable populations, and safeguard the financial system.

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