Financial Crimes Enforcement 

Network

FY 2018

Capital Investment Plan
Investment Name: BSA IT Modernization

Type of Investment: Major IT Investment

Description:

FinCEN's BSA IT Modernization initiative is a Treasury effort to provide and maintain a 

modernized information technology foundation to collect, analyze, and share Bank Secrecy Act 

(BSA) data.

Investment Anticipated Outlay: ($000,000s): 

Type 2015 and 

Prior 

Actual

2016 

Actual

2017 

Enacted

2018 

Estimated

2019 

Estimated

2020 

Estimated

2021 

Estimated

2022 and 

Beyond 

Estimated

Total

DME Costs 81.75 2.47 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.00 1.00 89.23

O&M Costs 82.96 22.46 27.02 27.02 27.02 27.02 0.00 27.02 240.53

Total Costs 164.71 24.93 28.02 28.02 28.02 28.02 0.00 28.02 329.76

Number of 

FTE 55.00 19.00 19.00 19.00 19.00 19.00 0.00 19.00 169.00

Summary of Purpose, Goals, and Benefits: 

FinCEN's BSA IT Modernization investment began in FY 2010 and is the primary IT investment 

that directly supports FinCEN's mission to safeguard the financial system from illicit use and 

combat money laundering and promote national security through the collection, analysis, and 

dissemination of financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities. FinCEN's 

mission supports Treasury's strategic goal to protect our national security through targeted 

financial actions. To successfully fulfill its mission, FinCEN relies on secure, advanced IT to 

manage the collection, processing, analysis, storage, and dissemination of BSA information that 

contributes to the soundness of, and confidence in, America's financial system. FinCEN is the 

administrator of the Bank Secrecy Act, which allows stakeholders to combine this financial 

intelligence information with other information sources to address issues related to securing 

economic and financial stability, and combating terrorist financing. Prior to the four-year 

development effort that was completed in FY 2014, FinCEN faced the challenge of how to 

enable easier compliance and to streamline BSA information capture for FinCEN's financial 

community stakeholders while maximizing the value and impact of BSA information for its 

regulators, law enforcement, and intelligence community stakeholders. This investment 

addressed these challenges by providing an enterprise-wide information management and 

analysis framework that equips law enforcement and financial industry regulators with better 

decision-making abilities and increased value of BSA information through enhanced data 

integrity and analytical tools. This allows law enforcement and regulators to focus their limited 

resources on the areas of shifting illicit criminal activities and vulnerabilities affecting the 

soundness and stability of the U.S. financial system. In addition, the BSA IT Modernization 

investment enables easier compliance and streamlines BSA information capture for FinCEN's 

financial community through its enhancement of electronic filing systems for filers, 
standardization of financial data with existing financial community standards, and more timely 

and useful feedback on BSA information filings and the use of BSA information.

Return on Investment: 

The BSA IT Modernization Investment supports FinCEN's modernized technical environment, 

which leverages state-of-the-art technology and is maintained at a government co-located site, 

supporting Treasury's data center consolidation efforts. Since FinCEN chose to build a new 

systems environment using government-owned assets as its alternative, the return on investment 

(ROI) reflects more qualitative benefits, although some quantitative, estimated benefits do apply. 

As a result, FinCEN successfully assumed all system ownership responsibility from the Internal 

Revenue Service (IRS), thus significantly reducing the IRS's operations and maintenance costs. 

In addition, the program has allowed FinCEN to mandate electronic filing for all Title 31 reports, 

and FinCEN now averages a receipt of 97 percent of electronic BSA filings. This effort has 

reduced paper processing and offered Treasury an annual savings of $8-12 million. FinCEN has 

greater flexibility and the ability to more quickly respond to its stakeholders' demands. The 

modernized infrastructure maintains more effective data security and audit technologies, 

including two-factor authentication, to maximize BSA data confidentiality and integrity. This 

initiative has improved time to respond to changes by reducing the number of work days 

required to develop and implement moderate impact changes to its BSA reports. FinCEN 

continues to improve with release planning efforts to address mandated changes to data 

collection tools, as well as defects and enhancements. In the area of data analysis, FinCEN has 

introduced more sophisticated web-based, analytical tools to its users. This improves the value of 

BSA information to law enforcement agencies and regulators by delivering data to its customers 

in a more timely fashion. FinCEN continues to provide data to its users in less than 48 hour from 

receipt. The bureau's capacity to proactively identify trends and patterns in the data has been 

improved, and sharing of analytical products assists law enforcement in enhancing their antimoney laundering strategies.

Requirements/ Benefits/ Mandates: 

Legislative Mandate: Statute 31 U.S.C. ï¿1⁄2 310 establishes FinCEN as a bureau within the 

Treasury Department and describes FinCEN's duties and powers to include maintaining a 

government-wide data access service with a range of financial transactions information.

Agency Strategic Plan / Annual Performance Plan: The fiscal years 2014-2018 Strategic Plan 

for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) illustrates the broad role the bureau 

plays in safeguarding the financial system from illicit use, combating money laundering, and 

promoting national security. As both the financial intelligence unit (FIU) for the United States 

and the federal government's primary anti-money laundering/countering the financing of 

terrorism (AML/CFT) regulator, FinCEN draws on a broad range of capabilities in technology, 

intelligence analysis, liaison, enforcement, and policy development to perform its work. 

Additionally, strong public-private sector partnerships are crucial for the bureau to achieve 

success. They serve as the foundation for protecting the financial system and national security.

Accomplishments and Future Objectives: 

In FY 2017 and FY 2018, FinCEN plans to continue supporting the operations and maintenance 

of the BSA IT Modernization investment with ongoing maintenance releases to address any 
defects and minor requests for change and enhancements. In addition, FinCEN will complete 

several small, development efforts to continue to enhance the analytical capabilities.

Performance Evaluation and Metrics: 

Metric 

Description

Performance 

Measurement 

Category 

Mapping

Measurement 

Condition

Reporting 

Frequency

Unit Of 

Measure

CY 

Target

Latest 

Actual 

Result

Date of 

Latest 

Actual 

Result

Percent of 

customers who

report overall 

satisfaction with 

external-facing, 

mission-critical 

search tool 

(FinCEN Query)

Customer 

Satisfaction 

(Results)

Over target Annual Percentage 70.00 78.00 09/26/2016

Number of 

queries generated 

in FinCEN Query 

System per month

Strategic and 

Business 

Results

Over target Monthly Number 560000 715518 03/31/2017

Cost per BSA 

filing transaction 

(electronically 

filed)

Financial 

Performance Under target Annual Dollars 0.11 0.11 09/30/2016

BSA IT Mod 

mission critical 

system 

availability

Strategic and 

Business 

Results

Over target Quarterly Percentage 99.00 98.43 04/01/2017

Average number 

of hours from 

receipt of 

Suspicious 

Activity Reports 

(SARs) to 

availability for 

Query users

Strategic and 

Business 

Results

Under target Monthly hours 48.00 30.72 03/31/2017

Percentage of 

customers 

submitting 

supporting 

documentation for 

Suspicious 

Activity Reports 

via the Secure 

Information 

Sharing System 

(SISS)

Strategic and 

Business 

Results

Over target Quarterly percentage 30.00 67.00 04/01/2017