Treasury Considers Allowing FinCEN to Veto Other Regulators’ Enforcement Actions

The Treasury Department reportedly aims to give its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) the ability to veto other regulators’ findings that a bank has violated the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

With this proposed change, Treasury wants to ensure that regulators focus on key parts of banks’ anti-money laundering efforts, rather than on technical compliance, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday (Dec. 10).

Currently, FinCEN, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) each enforce different parts of the BSA, per the report.

If Treasury’s proposal is adopted, the other regulators would need to seek FinCEN’s permission to bring an enforcement action against a bank after finding a violation, the report said.

The Treasury Department’s proposal is still being developed, could change and would be submitted for public comment before being implemented, per the report.

The proposal is part of a broader drive by the agency to reduce restrictions on banks that it believes have slowed economic growth, according to the report.

It was reported in March that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that his department would work to see that financial regulators focus on material financial risks.

Bessent also said that he agreed with the banking industry that federal regulators’ bank supervision is opaque, subjective and needlessly restrictive.

“We need our financial regulators singing in unison from the same song sheet,” Bessent said. “To be clear, this does not mean consolidation of agencies, but coordination via Treasury, such that our regulators work in parallel with each other and industry.”

In March, it was reported that the Treasury Department was drafting recommendations that would streamline other banking regulators and give the department more control over them.

The Treasury Department said in July that it planned to delay for two years the implementation of a new anti-money laundering rule focused on investment advisers while FinCEN revisits the scope of the rule.

The agency said in a press release that the postponement was meant “to ensure efficient regulation that appropriately balances costs and benefits” and that it aims to ease the industry’s compliance costs and reduce regulatory uncertainty.