The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Federal Reserve are withdrawing a proposed rule that would have significantly shrunk the dollar threshold for banks to report cross-border wire transfers.
The current threshold for collecting, maintaining and reporting information on international fund transfers is $3,000. However, in 2020, FinCEN and the Fed proposed lowering the threshold for covered cross-border transactions to $250. The proposed changes would also have clarified that the definition of “money” expressly includes convertible virtual currencies.
At the time, the American Bankers Association raised several concerns about the rule, including that FinCEN and the Fed had not performed an analysis of the proposal’s effects on banks. In a notice today, FinCEN and the Fed withdrew the proposed rule, pointing to many comments the agencies received stating that lowering the threshold would impose a significant regulatory burden on financial institutions, particularly smaller ones.
“The proposal is being withdrawn to provide certainty to the public that no final rule will be issued without an additional opportunity for public comment,” according to the notice.
