FinCEN Exchange Brings Together Public and Private Stakeholders to Discuss Bank Secrecy Act Suspicious Activity Reporting Statistics

March 23, 2021 / Source: FinCEN

Immediate Release

March 23, 2021

WASHINGTON—The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today convened a virtual FinCEN Exchange event to discuss Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) filing statistics for low-dollar, voluntarily-filed suspicious activity reports (SARs) that contain a transaction nexus to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.  

During today’s event, representatives from depository institutions, money services businesses, law enforcement, and FinCEN reviewed SAR-filing information, including the top reported SAR filing categories and discussed potential trends in suspicious activity.

Today’s FinCEN Exchange supports one of FinCEN’s highest priorities—to strengthen public-private partnership to reveal and mitigate threats in order to safeguard our national security and protect communities and citizens from harm.  Engagement on specific topics, trends, and typologies between industry and law enforcement enhances the value of BSA reporting while helping to identify and address potential criminal methodologies as well as efficient means of reporting actionable information by financial institutions.  

This kind of dialogue and information sharing through the FinCEN Exchange program assists  financial institutions in filing high-quality BSA reports with FinCEN, which in turn helps law enforcement in detecting, preventing, and prosecuting criminals and other bad actors.  It also allows financial institutions to better tailor their efforts, making them efficient and effective in their compliance obligations in support of the BSA and our national security. 

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FinCEN Exchange is a voluntary public-private partnership that convenes relevant stakeholders, including law enforcement and financial institutions, to discuss criminal threats and share information, typologies, and solutions.  FinCEN Exchange aims to protect our national security and our citizens from harm by combatting money laundering and its related crimes, including terrorism, through public-private dialogue that encourages, enables, and acknowledges industry focus on high-value and high-impact activities.
 

The mission of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is to safeguard the financial system from illicit use, combat money laundering and its related crimes including terrorism, and promote national security through the strategic use of financial authorities and the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence.

Financial Institution

Depository Institutions

Money Services Businesses