Leading House Republicans are urging the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to finalize its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) rule.
In a letter to Andrea Gacki, director of FinCEN, Reps. French Hill (R-AR) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) said the rule will reduce unnecessary compliance burdens, raise outdated reporting thresholds, encourage AI-driven risk monitoring, and refocus the Bank Secrecy Act on producing actionable intelligence for law enforcement.
“We believe the NPRM (notice of proposed rulemaking) is a critical opportunity to prioritize risk in Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) implementation. As you know, compliance is a regulatory burden for financial institutions that has grown untethered from AML/CFT outcomes, even as it imposes an estimated $59 billion in costs annually across the sector. Furthermore, antiquated filing thresholds and the manner in which the BSA is currently enforced drive compliance resources into the production of tens of millions of low-value filings. The NPRM aims to shift this focus, empowering financial institutions to evaluate risk and provide actionable intelligence rather than defensive reporting,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Gacki.
Hill is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee while Davidson is chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions.