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NAFCU Vice President of Legislative Affairs Brad Thaler, in a letter ahead of today's Senate Banking Committee hearing on Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) improvements, suggested increasing the threshold and extending the deadline for filing suspicious activity reporting (SARs), which would reduce the regulatory burden facing many credit unions.

The hearing, "Combating Money Laundering and Other Forms of Illicit Finance: Opportunities to Reform and Strengthen BSA Enforcement," begins at 10 a.m. Eastern.

In the letter Monday to Senate Banking Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Ranking Member Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Thaler noted NAFCU's support of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), BSA and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements in preventing tax evasion, money laundering and terror financing.

"However," Thaler wrote, "BSA requirements still remain a burden to implement, especially in the ever-growing tidal wave of new regulations since the financial crisis. We urge the Committee to continue to look for ways to provide credit unions with regulatory relief by reforming and strengthening BSA laws. The current system needs updating to ensure the focus is on catching illegal activity and not just paperwork and compliance for the next exam."

In order to reduce the regulatory burden, Thaler recommended that FinCEN:

• raise the required SAR reporting threshold, which has not been increased since it was set in 1996;
• coordinate law enforcement priorities with credit union examiners to ensure SARs are useful;
• extend filing deadlines and allow simplified notice filings that reference ongoing activity;
• provide technical grants and training to assist with the cost of software or technological capabilities to reduce the number of man-hours needed; and
• support efforts to facilitate more coordination between state agencies, law enforcement and credit unions.