Raise The Money has got you covered. There are new security requirements in order for a candidate to sign up to receive online contributions. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) is a bureau of the United States Department of Treasury that collects information about financial transactions to combat financial crimes. These changes are being made in order to protect the identity of the account owner. These new FinCEN requirements go into effect in May 2018 for all financial institutions. The major change that that financial institutions must identify and verify the legal entity customer’s beneficial owner at the time the account is opened. This applies to all payment services providers or payment processors. The affected financial institutions are required by law to establish and maintain procedures that verify the identity of the legal entity customer’s beneficial owner and are being enforced across the board. We have always been doing this – but now we must now collect a little bit more information. If you are signing up for an account to accept credit card contributions and a company is not requesting this additional information they are not following the new guidelines. Your account will be subject to being flagged and turned off.
What does this mean for you? If you already have an account with us this update does not apply to you. This is for all new accounts set up on Raise The Money. Due to these new requirements, Raise The Money is required to collect additional information to verify the primary account holder’s identity. We are now requiring that photo IDs be uploaded to verify identities. Passports and valid government issued IDs are acceptable forms of identification. Additionally, we are required to collect a social security number for all accounts. This is even if your campaign has an EIN. We must still collect the social security number of the primary person responsible for the account.
Although these new requirements may be tedious, they are to ensure the protection of your identity and to reduce the occurrence of financial fraud overall. The Financial Times reported in 2017 that nearly half of all payment processing companies fail to secure their clients’ sensitive payment information, which can lead to fraud and identity theft. RaiseTheMoney.com remains PCI compliant, which is the most stringent level of certification available in the payment processing industry. We pride ourselves on maintaining a secure environment in which we handle your sensitive information, and requiring this new information will simply add another blanket of security. After all, running office is stressful enough. Fraud isn’t something you need to worry about when you process with RaiseTheMoney.com.
-RTM