Financial Crimes Enforcement Network FinCEN

The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 required banks to keep records and report certain transactions to the government, creating a paper trail for investigators. Treasury set up FinCEN in 1990 to collect and analyze that data, and the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 made it a formal bureau of the department with expanded authority after the September 11 attacks exposed gaps in tracking terrorist money.

FinCEN writes and enforces the regulations that implement the Bank Secrecy Act. Banks, casinos, money transmitters, and other financial businesses must file currency transaction reports for cash transactions over 10,000 dollars and suspicious activity reports when they detect possible crimes, millions of reports a year in total. FinCEN maintains these filings in a database used by the FBI, IRS, DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, and state and local police, and it serves as the U.S. financial intelligence unit, sharing information with counterparts abroad.

Its most debated recent task has been the Corporate Transparency Act of 2021, which required many small companies to report their true owners to FinCEN to stop criminals hiding behind anonymous shell companies. After legal challenges and objections from small businesses, FinCEN in March 2025 narrowed the requirement to foreign companies registered in the United States. Supporters of the original law argued that the change reopened a major loophole, while critics of the law welcomed relief from what they saw as a costly burden.