Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, acting director Himamauli Das fielded a wide array of questions from lawmakers, many of which focused on FinCEN’s ongoing effort to implement the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020.
While maintaining that the agency was doing the best it could with the resources it has, Das repeatedly emphasised the need for FinCEN to receive millions more in funding from Congress to be able to hire full-time staff and effectively carry out its various mandates.
Das acknowledged prior concerns that FinCEN was moving too slowly to implement the Corporate Transparency Act – a key provision of the Anti-Money Laundering Act that was expected to remove some regulatory burden from banks and their customer due diligence requirements by directing business owners to report their beneficial owners directly to the government.
According to American Banking, while FinCEN’s budget for the 2022 fiscal year is improvement from its previous allocation, it still falls short as the funds need to be used to hire full-time employees dedicated to implementing the Anti-Money Laundering Act and improve the agency’s cybersecurity practices.
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