The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has not addressed all the concerns about the process for filing suspicious activity reports, a Government Accountability Office report released Monday said.
Fincen proposed a new SAR form in 2006, but the proposed form has not been implement and fails to address all the problems with such filings, the GAO said.
The report recommended Fincen incorporate practices for agency collaboration, such as defining a common outcome, agreeing on agency or individual roles and responsibilities and including a mechanism to monitor, evaluate and report on how the process worked. Fincen said it has not implemented the new form because of technology limitations with the Internal Revenue Service's data system. The GAO directed Fincen to develop and document its strategy to incorporate the GAO-identified proposed changes to enhance the form.
The report also addressed an industry complaint that banks file defensive filings, increasing the number of unnecessary filings. The GAO said regulators told it that information on defensive filings was anecdotal, and their little evidence proved their existence.
