Cross-border sharing among financial institutions of the underlying facts, transactions and documents upon which a suspicious activity report (SAR) is based is not the kind of sharing that is prohibited by the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Treasury’s financial crimes enforcement office said in guidance issued Friday.
“Robust and appropriate sharing of financial information – such as transaction records, customer and account information, and investigative materials – that would otherwise be siloed at individual financial institutions amplifies financial institutions’ collective ability to detect, prevent, and mitigate illicit finance activity,” according to the guidance document.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said it issued the guidance (FIN-2025-G001) “to encourage and promote appropriate, voluntary cross-border sharing of information between and among financial institutions, including appropriate foreign financial institutions, to help combat the threats posed by money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illicit finance activity, including from drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), and fraudsters.”
Such sharing can enhance an institution’s own anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) programs, enabling it to better detect and prevent illicit finance activity “and produce reports that are highly useful to law enforcement and national security agencies,” it said.
The guidance document provides a “non-exhaustive” list of examples of the kinds of underlying information that FinCEN says would not typically reveal the existence of a SAR or fall within the BSA’s disclosure prohibition and implementing regulations. But it said financial institutions “must take appropriate measures (e.g., redaction) to ensure that information that would reveal the existence of a SAR is not shared.”
Moreover, it said financial institutions should also consider any relevant obligations arising under other U.S. legal authorities – including, but not limited to, the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, or state laws – and, “as applicable,” aspects of or obligations arising under foreign law, “all of which are outside the scope of this guidance.”
The guidance, which FinCEN said does not change any existing BSA obligations or impose new requirements, was issued in consultation with the staffs of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
FinCEN guidance: Cross-Border Information Sharing by Financial Institutions and SAR Confidentiality (FIN-2025-G001)
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