Bank Secrecy Act Compliance

To combat money laundering in the U.S., Congress enacted a series of laws, collectively referred to as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The BSA required financial institutions, including money services businesses, to report suspicious activities to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Under the BSA, the Postal Service is defined as a money services business and is required to report suspicious activity involving money order sales transactions or patterns of transactions. The Postal Service must also provide BSA Anti-Money Laundering training to all employees responsible for or overseeing the sale of financial instruments such as money orders. Our objectives were to determine whether the Postal Service properly reviews and reports suspicious activity information, and to evaluate contractor compliance and Postal Service oversight of its BSA training contract.