FinCEN Issues Request for Information on AML Compliance Costs: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

On September 30, 2025, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued a request for information (“AML Survey”) on the costs that nonbank financial institutions (“NBFIs”) incur to comply with anti-money laundering (“AML”) requirements.¹ NBFIs include casinos, money-services businesses (such as certain digital asset service providers), certain insurance companies, dealers in precious metals, precious stones, and jewels, operators of credit card systems, and certain finance companies.²

For many years, the financial services sector has highlighted the significant costs of AML compliance, which a 2024 survey found to exceed $60 billion per year.³ Although there is broad agreement on the importance of AML compliance for the protection of the US financial system and US national security interests more broadly, both public and private actors have questioned the utility and effectiveness of certain AML regulatory obligations.³

The results of the AML Survey will be used to develop proposals to reduce the compliance burden for NBFIs. Submissions are due no later than December 1, 2025.

Background

The federal Bank Secrecy Act has imposed AML compliance obligations on NBFIs (and banks) for many years. These obligations generally include requirements to maintain an effective compliance program, detect and report suspicious activity, perform know-your-customer procedures, maintain certain records, and provide information in response to government requests.

Additionally, NBFIs are required to comply with economic sanctions issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”). While NBFIs are not legally required to maintain a compliance program, failure to maintain such programs exposes NBFIs to steep penalties for sanctions violations as OFAC sanctions apply on a strict liability basis (i.e., where knowledge or intent is not required for a violation to exist). Furthermore, OFAC expects market participants to implement compliance programs and failure to do so may be considered as an aggravating factor in an enforcement context. As a result, many NBFIs integrate sanctions compliance measures into their AML compliance framework.

The costs of AML and sanctions compliance efforts to NBFIs are significant, and NBFIs are not always made aware of how law enforcement uses reports to prevent and prosecute criminal activity (particularly in the AML space). For example, some money transmitters have reported compliance costs in the millions of dollars to implement transaction monitoring software.⁵ Similarly, a BPI survey of its members found that participants reviewed approximately 16 million alerts, filed over 640,000 suspicious activity reports (“SARs”), and submitted more than 5.2 million currency transaction reports (“CTRs”), and institutions that record data regarding law enforcement inquiries reported that only a median of 4% of SARs and an average of 0.44% of CTRs warranted follow-up inquiries from law enforcement. ⁶

AML Survey

The AML Survey contains several questions on a NBFI’s compliance costs for AML and sanctions requirements. The topics covered by the questions include:

1. Total AML compliance costs, both in dollars and as a percentage of total operating expenses.
2. The use of technology to perform know-your-customer procedures, identify suspicious activity and reportable currency transactions, share information with FinCEN, and comply with OFAC sanctions.
3. The relative cost of developing and filing SARs, including monitoring and investigation expenses.
4. The portion of AML compliance activities that are attributable to satisfying OFAC’s sanctions requirements.
5. The cost, in dollars and as a percentage of total compliance costs, of using the AML compliance framework to perform other activities, such as fraud monitoring.
6. Whether using the AML compliance framework for other activities results in the identification and reporting of suspicious activity.
7. If there are particular types of products, services, customers or delivery channels where required monitoring, reviews, and investigations have generated limited useful information.

The AML Survey also asks NBFIs to break down the costs of specific elements of an AML compliance program if such information is readily available. The identified elements are:

1. Customer identification and verification procedures.
2. Reporting requirements for suspicious activity reporting.
3. Reporting requirements for currency transaction reporting and exemptions or reports relating to currency in excess of $10,000 received by a trade or business.
4. Internal controls related to the AML compliance program.
5. Independent testing for compliance by internal personnel or an outside party.
6. Training and staffing employees.
7. Section 314(a) information-sharing
8. Funds transfer recordkeeping.
9. Monetary instrument recordkeeping.
10. Compliance with FinCEN Special Measures.
11. Software.
12. Additional financial institution-specific AML recordkeeping obligations.
13. Money services business registration.
14. Other third-party activities.

Takeaways

The AML Survey is a good opportunity for NBFIs to demonstrate the burdensome nature of many AML compliance requirements. While FinCEN is committed to reducing that burden, it must comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, including the requirements for notice-and-comment rulemaking, when doing so. The results of the AML Survey are likely to help FinCEN show the need for burden-reducing changes, as well as identify which areas are most in need of revision.

Notably, the AML Survey includes questions on the cost of compliance with OFAC’s sanctions requirements, even though those requirements are not legally part of the AML rules. This may indicate future integration of sanctions compliance expectations into the AML compliance framework—or merely a more holistic approach to assessing the burden of federal financial crime compliance for NBFIs to identify and remove duplicative and unnecessary requirements.

FinCEN notes that responses to the AML Survey will not be used for supervisory or enforcement purposes. However, all information submitted in the AML Survey will be made publicly available. Therefore, NBFIs may consider the prudence of anonymous submissions as well as the risks associated with responding. For example, NBFIs may wish to avoid including sensitive business information in their responses and should not include confidential supervisory information, such as information relating to SARs.

¹ FinCEN, Survey of the Costs of AML/CFT Compliance (Sept. 30, 2025); 90 Fed. Reg. 47,132 (Sept. 30, 2025).

² The federal banking regulators are collecting similar information on AML compliance costs for banks. See FDIC, Survey of the Costs of AML/CFT Compliance (Sept. 12, 2025).

³ LexisNexis, Study Reveals Annual Cost of Financial Crime Compliance Totals $61 Billion in the United States and Canada (Feb. 21, 2024).

⁴ E.g., GAO, Currency Transaction Reports (Dec. 11, 2024) (“law enforcement agencies accessed less than 3 percent of CTRs filed from 2014 through 2023”); David Birch, The Case Against The Anti-Money Laundering Rules (May 3, 2021) (“the global AML system could be ‘the world’s least effective policy experiment’”).

⁵ GAO, Report 16-65 at 28 (Jan. 2016).

⁶ BPI, Report on U.S. Financial Institution Resources Devoted to BSA/AML & Sanctions Compliance (Oct. 29, 2018). The BPI Report did not report an average number of SARs, nor a median of CTRs, followed up on by law enforcement.