The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) was ordered to assess and report on the viability of creating a no-action letter process by the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. A no-action letter is generally understood to be a form of enforcement discretion where an US agency states by letter that it will not take an enforcement action against the submitting party for the specific conduct presented to the agency.

The FinCEN has recently completed a report on its assessment of whether to establish a process for the issuance of no-action letters in response to inquiries concerning the application of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and other anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism laws to specific conduct. “FinCEN concludes that a no-action letter process would be a useful complement to its current forms of regulatory guidance and relief,” said Acting Director Michael Mosier in a communication by FinCEN.

In the opinion of Aaron Nicodemus published in Compliance Week, this new no-action letter process would give financial institutions another way to enter in dialogue with the regulator about innovative and newly emerging technologies.