Odd Announcement on Bank Statement

I am an accountant. Today I was reconciling a client's account and saw this notice on the bank statement.

As a US business, **** Bank is required to comply with the US laws administered by the Office of Forgeign Assets Control (OFAC). In order to aid in ****** Bank's compliance effort, effective Oct. 8, 2007 ***** Bank will restrict access to its website www.XXXXXXXXXX.com and www.XXXXXXXXX.com while clients are in the following OFAX sanctioned countries: Cuba, Iran, Lineria, Myanmar/Burma, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. This will restrict us of all services that are accessed by ****** Bank's website, inlcuding, but not limited to, online banking, bill pay, account to account transfers and apply online

Is this strange? I've never seen a notice like that before.

Sounds like they are trying
to cut down fraud.
Limiting out-of-country IP
addresses.

Great idea, IMO.

Regards,
Lex

Let's take a look at the Office of Foreign Assets Control first and see what they do.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the US Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. OFAC acts under Presidential wartime and national emergency powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under US jurisdiction.
www.treasury.gov...

A very interesting site with a lot to read up on.

Here's Wiki link with additional information, but read the first one first.
en.wikipedia.org...


It looks like they're trying to control the move of money and assets in and out of regions they deem hostile or potentially harmful to the United States.

You'll probably see a lot more of these notices in the future.