When FinCEN restructured its reporting hierarchy, the bureau signaled a subtle but important shift for banks: some of the energy it had once spent toward improving compliance would now serve to penalize regulatory violators, says former Assistant Director for the Office of Compliance Tom Fleming.
The U.S. Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit is considering invoking for the first time a Bank Secrecy Act power to obtain data on foreign banks, say multiple sources.
The annual number of suspicious activity reports filed by money services businesses fell by 14 percent in 2012 compared with the previous year, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a report Wednesday.
The U.S. government's financial intelligence unit will resume an abandoned practice of fining banks for Bank Secrecy Act violations apart from the enforcement actions it works on with federal regulators, say sources.
A $120 million U.S. Treasury Department initiative to update the database that stores and disseminates Bank Secrecy Act reports is behind schedule on nearly a quarter of the projects required for completion, a federal watchdog agency said.
An anti-fraud company backed by several large American financial institutions is asking the U.S. Treasury Department whether it is legally protected to manage a shared database on suspected money launderers.
An effort by the country's financial intelligence unit to take ownership of Bank Secrecy Act data managed by the IRS appears to be on track, according to industry observers and the U.S. Treasury Department.
Poor project management and the inability of managers to take either criticism or corrective action were among the factors that doomed the U.S. Treasury Department's $17.4 million Bank Secrecy Act data initiative, according to a federal watchdog agency.
The U.S. Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit will unveil details in January of its Bank Secrecy Act database overhaul scheduled for completion in 2014.