Enhancing Treasury's Anti-Terror Tools Act

Enhancing Treasury's Anti-Terror Tools Act

(Sec. 2) This bill instructs the Department of the Treasury to report to Congress on the employment by U.S. embassies of full-time and temporary Treasury attaches and their role in advancing U.S. anti-terrorism financing interests, including concerning:

• how Treasury's interests relating to anti-terror finance, money laundering, and related illicit finance issues are handled at other embassies;
• issues identified by Treasury attaches concerning anti-terror finance, money laundering, and related illicit finance;
• recommendations to improve coordination between Treasury and foreign financial ministries of efforts to block the financing of terror, money laundering, and related illicit finance; and
• whether Treasury's interests relating to anti-terror finance, money laundering, or related illicit finance issues are thought to be underrepresented in some embassies or regions.

(Sec. 3) The bill revises Treasury's authority to issue an order imposing recordkeeping and reporting requirements upon financial institutions and nonfinancial trade or business groups in certain geographic areas regarding transactions for the payment, receipt, or transfer of U.S. coins or currency (or other monetary instruments as Treasury may describe). Such an order may include all funds, not just U.S. coins or currency, involved in such transactions.

(Sec. 4) Treasury shall study:

• the advisability and implications of transforming the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence into a stand-alone bureau of Treasury,
• the potential efficacy of requiring banking regulators to establish a pilot technical assistance program for depository institutions and credit unions that furnish account services to money services businesses serving individuals in Somalia and whether it could improve the ability of Americans to legitimately send funds through transparent and easily monitored channels, and
• the potential impact of allowing money services businesses to share their state examinations with depository institutions and credit unions.

(Sec. 6) The bill expresses the sense of Congress that Treasury should work with finance ministry counterparts worldwide to spur the development of entities similar to its Office of Intelligence and Analysis to integrate the intelligence community with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing efforts.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov