Website: http://www.saltmarshcpa.com
Location: One Tampa City Center 201 N. Franklin St., Ste 2720 Tampa, Florida 33602.
Outreach: Regional
Contact: Kristen Stogniew at Kristen.stogniew@saltmarshcpa.com
Phone: +1.813.287.1111
Saltmarsh, Cleaveland & Gund is proud to continue its Partnership with the AMLA!
We are a regional accounting firm, specializing in key industries, including financial institutions, not-for-profits, government, construction, manufacturing and distribution, real estate and other commercial businesses. We serve clients throughout the Southeast with a team of 17 shareholders and over 100 professional staff from our offices in Tampa, Orlando, Fort Walton Beach and Pensacola.
Our Financial Institutions Expertise
Since 1944, Saltmarsh has been providing auditing, tax, and consulting services to a wide range of financial institutions. We currently serve approximately 120 financial institutions, ranging in size from $20 million to over $3 billion in total assets. As industry specialists, we know the financial, operational and regulatory challenges you face, and we have the solutions you need.
Our programs of particular interest to AMLA members include:
BSA Independent Test – A regulated institution’s compliance with the BSA and its related regulations remains a high priority area for banking regulators. Our program follows the FFIEC exam manual guidance and performs a risk-based testing and review of the institution’s policies, internal control procedures and training, as well as record keeping and reporting required under the BSA, OFAC, CIP and USA PATRIOT Act’s requirements.
AML Systems Model Validation – Regulators expect an institution to periodically validate the AML systems and models being relied on to identify, detect and prevent money laundering. Our approach follows inter-agency guidance, and involves obtaining an understanding of the institution’s risk profile and how it uses the solution in its overall BSA program. We test the model’s accuracy in capturing transactions from core sources/data feeds, and test its methodology for establishing and applying filtering criteria in alerting on suspicious activity and assigning risk ratings, as applicable. Of particular value, we assess whether the established criteria are reasonable for the institution, and include higher risk products, customers, and geographies, as appropriate. As needed, we help management work with the vendor to obtain enhancements or revise system parameters so they are appropriate for the institution.
AML System Support Groups, Anti-Money Laundering/Fraud Workshops, Training
Like the AMLA, one of our most important objectives is to help our clients, and the industry in general, stay current on fraud and money-laundering trends, software systems, and regulatory expectations. On a regular basis, we facilitate remote and in-person networking among our clients and friends. For example, we host AML system groups for those who use the same AML software solution, which helps each of them better understand the system and use it to its fullest potential. We also host and facilitate AML/Fraud Workshops for attendees to discuss recent cases they have uncovered, which teaches detection and investigative techniques as well as emerging trends. We also host or provide educational forums to explain complicated fraud or money laundering schemes, and provide expert activity detection and investigation advice.
Our People
Unique to our firm, two shareholders make compliance concerns their primary focus areas. Kristen Stogniew oversees the firm’s provision of BSA and Compliance services. She has had a successful law and consulting practice in banking operations and regulatory compliance for 20 years and is a regular speaker at the Florida Bankers Association’s BSA and Compliance schools, the Florida School of Banking, AMLA, and other regional compliance associations. Alex Hager is the former Commissioner of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, and he routinely assists our client base in complex regulatory matters. As our client, you may find access to Alex to be a great benefit to our overall relationship. And, our team of BSA field consultants each have a significant amount of experience and in-house and external BSA training and enjoy helping our clients maintain regulatory compliance and address the many BSA changes and challenges facing the financial institution industry.
Other Financial Institution Services
In addition to our BSA services, Saltmarsh, Cleaveland & Gund offers financial institutions a full line of outsourced and co-sourced solutions, including External Audit; Tax Return; 401(k) Audit; Internal Audit; Trust Audit; FDICIA Controls Review; Loan (Credit Quality) Review; ALLL Methodology Review; Interest Rate Risk/Asset Liability Management Review; IT Audit/Vulnerability Assessment/Penetration Testing; Liquidity Review; ACH Controls and NACHA Compliance Audits; Loan and Deposit Compliance Audit, Mentoring or Monitoring; Fair Lending Reviews; and HMDA or Flood “Scrubs”.
Please let us know if we can help your institution succeed in BSA and compliance!