GAO Reports on Information Sharing Between Regulators and FinCEN

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report on the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

The report examined, among other objectives, how the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and supervisory and law enforcement agencies (1) collaborate and (2) provide metrics and feedback on the usefulness of BSA reporting.

However, GAO found that FinCEN did not consistently communicate available metrics and when FinCEN did so, it did it on an ad-hoc basis.

Below is information specific to credit unions from the report.

According to the report, each federal credit union must receive a BSA examination each examination cycle — although the frequency and scope of these examinations may vary based on the credit union’s size and other risk factors. National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) officials noted that certain small credit unions with limited separation of duties may be examined more frequently.

According to the report, NCUA made 50 referrals for potential BSA violations to FinCEN between fiscal year 2015 and 2018 (see Table 3).

Appendix II has statistics on the number of BSA examinations and violations.

The most common BSA violations cited by the federal banking regulators were violations of requirements to report suspicious activities, 314(a) information-sharing requirements, rules for filing of reports, BSA training, and a system of internal controls.

NCUA accounted for the majority of 314(a) information-sharing violations, which include a financial institution failing to expeditiously search its records after receiving an information request from FinCEN based on credible evidence concerning money laundering.

Between fiscal year 2015 and the first half of fiscal year 2018, NCUA did 14,575 BSA examinations. During that time period, NCUA found 8,477 BSA violations, which resulted in 4,588 informal enforcement actions. NCUA counts each BSA violation in a Document of Resolution as an informal action.

However, NCUA did not issue any formal enforcement action against a credit union during that time period.