All new legal entity (commercial) customers and their beneficial owners.

The definition of “beneficial owner” has two components or “prongs” and can be applied on an either/or basis:

• Ownership prong: Each individual, if any, who owns, directly or indirectly, 25 percent or more of the equity interests of the legal entity. Note: In certain situations, the bank may obtain BOI at lower equity thresholds.
• Control prong: An individual with significant responsibility to control, manage or direct a legal entity customer, such as an executive officer, senior manager or individual who performs similar functions.

Note: FinCEN recognizes that FIs lack an ability to verify the status of an individual as a beneficial owner. As such, FIs are permitted to rely on customer representations and certification to determine the beneficial owners of a legal entity customer.

Existing Customer Requirements

• FIs are not required to retroactively obtain BOI for existing customers.
• Existing customers are subject to the requirements only upon certain “trigger” events. A trigger event includes:
  • Opening a new account;
  • A previously exempt legal entity is no longer exempt;
  • The bank has reasonable belief that the legal entity ownership has changed; and
  • The customer residual AML risk is assessed during certain BSA/AML monitoring activities.