It runs the database of suspicious-activity and currency-transaction reports filed by banks, casinos, and money-services businesses. The Corporate Transparency Act of 2021 also made it the keeper of company beneficial-ownership data, a role courts and Congress have contested since.
Open the interactive page for FinCEN →Created byadministratively by Treasury Order 105-08 (Apr. 25, 1990); made a statutory bureau of the Treasury by USA PATRIOT Act § 361 (2001); duties expanded by the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (Pub. L. 116-283)
Head appointed31 U.S.C. § 310(b)(1): 'The head of FinCEN shall be the Director, who shall be appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury'; no Senate role, no fixed term (department-head appoints)
Removal standardno statutory protection — at will of the Secretary of the Treasury (§ 310 contains no term or removal provision)
Funded underappropriated — Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, Department of the Treasury title ('Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Salaries and Expenses' account)
Congressional oversightHouse Committee on Financial Services · Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Inspector generalTreasury OIG (PAS IG under 5 U.S.C. ch. 4)
Judicial reviewBank Secrecy Act rules (incl. Corporate Transparency Act beneficial-ownership rules) challenged via APA § 702 in district court; civil-penalty assessments reviewed de novo in district court (31 U.S.C. § 5321(b)(2)); SARs/CTRs and other BSA reports exempt from FOIA disclosure (31 U.S.C. § 5319)
Comment on its proposed rules; challenge a final rule in court; vote for Congress, which wrote the Bank Secrecy Act it enforces.