FinCEN
The U.S. Treasury Department bureau responsible for administering anti-money-laundering regulations, including guidance applying those rules to crypto businesses.
FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury responsible for administering the Bank Secrecy Act (see Kaavon's "Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)" glossary definition) and other U.S. anti-money-laundering regulations, as well as collecting and analyzing the financial reports — such as Suspicious Activity Reports and Currency Transaction Reports — that regulated institutions are required to file. FinCEN has issued specific guidance over time clarifying how existing money-transmission and anti-money-laundering rules apply to crypto exchanges, certain wallet providers, and other crypto businesses.
A crypto business that FinCEN determines qualifies as a money services business is generally required to register with FinCEN and comply with its anti-money-laundering program requirements, including customer identification and transaction monitoring, regardless of whether the business also needs separate state-level money transmitter licenses. FinCEN's guidance has evolved over time as crypto business models have diversified, and precisely which crypto activities trigger FinCEN registration and reporting obligations can depend on specific facts about how a given business operates.
Examples
- A crypto exchange facilitating customer trades is generally required to register with FinCEN as a money services business and maintain an anti-money-laundering compliance program.
- FinCEN guidance has helped clarify, over time, which specific crypto business activities trigger money-transmission registration requirements and which don't.