On June 17, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. French Hill (R-AR) and Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions Chairman Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) published a letter they sent on June 9 to FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki urging the agency to finalize its notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on AML/CFT programs (previously covered by InfoBytes here) in a manner that reduces unnecessary compliance burdens, raises outdated reporting thresholds, encourages AI-driven risk monitoring, and refocuses the BSA on producing actionable intelligence for law enforcement. The letter noted that BSA compliance imposes an estimated $59 billion in annual costs across the financial sector and that current enforcement emphasizes process over outcomes, driving compliance resources into “liability mitigation rather than the identification of AML/CFT risk.”

Specifically, the lawmakers called on FinCEN to increase Currency Transaction Report (CTR) and Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filing thresholds, which have not been updated since the BSA’s enactment over 50 years ago and the 1990s, respectively. The letter cited a 2024 GAO finding that only 5.4 percent of CTRs were accessed by law enforcement, and stated that approximately 21.5 million CTRs and 4.8 million SARs were filed in 2025. Hill and Davidson also urged FinCEN to empower financial institutions to adopt AI throughout their AML/CFT programs, noting that the final rule should allow institutions to respond effectively as “money launderers and scammers adopt the latest tools of digitized finance.”