FinCEN has requested financial institutions affected by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to contact FinCEN and their functional regulator as soon as practicable if a COVID-19-affected financial institution has concern about any potential delays in its ability to file required Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reports. Financial institutions seeking to contact FinCEN should call FinCEN’s Regulatory Support Section (RSS) at 1-800-949-2732 and select option 6 or e-mail at FRC@fincen.gov. FinCEN’s RSS will continue to be available to support financial institutions for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.
FinCEN also advises financial institutions to remain alert to malicious or fraudulent transactions similar to those that occur in the wake of natural disasters. FinCEN is monitoring public reports and BSA reports of potential illicit behavior connected to COVID-19 and notes the following emerging trends:
In addition, FinCEN’s advisory, FIN-2017-A007 “Advisory to Financial Institutions Regarding Disaster-Related Fraud” (October 31, 2017) describes other relevant typologies, such as benefits fraud, charities fraud, and cyber-related fraud. For suspected suspicious transactions linked to COVID-19, along with checking the appropriate suspicious activity report-template (SAR-template) box(es) for certain typologies, FinCEN also encourages financial institutions to enter “COVID19” in Field 2 of the SAR-template.