Department of the Treasury 

Financial Crimes Enforcement 

Network

FY 2019

Capital Investment Plan
2

Major IT Investment

BSA IT Modernization

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 2016 and 

Prior 

Actual

2017 

Actual

2018 

Enacted

2019 

Estimated

2020 

Estimated

2021 

Estimated

2022 

Estimated

2023 and 

Beyond 

Estimated

Total

Sub-Total DME (Including 

Internal labor (Govt. FTE) 

Costs)

84.23 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 91.23

Sub-Total O&M Costs 

(Including Internal Labor 

(Govt. FTE) Costs)

105.42 25.40 25.76 25.76 25.76 25.76 25.76 25.76 285.39

Total Costs 189.65 26.40 26.76 26.76 26.76 26.76 26.76 26.76 376.62

Number of FTE 74.00 19.00 13.00 13.00 13.00 13.00 13.00 13.00 171.00

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, 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 achieving 

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 enabling easier compliance and streamlining BSA information capture for its 

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 
3

financial community through its enhancement of electronic filing systems, standardization of 

financial data with existing 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 BSA filings electronically. This effort has 

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

The BSA IT Modernization investment provides FinCEN greater data security, flexibility and the 

ability to more quickly respond to its stakeholders' demands. For example, it 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. 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. The modernized infrastructure also maintains more effective data 

security and audit technologies, including two-factor authentication, to maximize BSA data 

confidentiality and integrity.

Requirements/ Benefits/ Mandates: 

Legislative mandates, Outstanding audit findings or Material weakness, Presidential 

Directive: There are no specific requirements resulting from outstanding audit findings or 

material weaknesses, Presidential Directives, or legislative mandates.

Accomplishments and Future Objectives: 

In FY 2018 and FY 2019, 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.

Details of Useful Life Period: 

Year the investment began: 2010

End Year of the current planning cycle: 2023

Description of why the investment is not consistent with life cycle model defined in OMB 
4

Circular A-131.: This investment is consistent with the life cycle model defined in OMB 

Circular A-131.

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 externalfacing, mission-critical search tool 

(FinCEN Query)

Customer 

Satisfaction 

(Results)

Over target Annual Percentage 70.00 79.00 09/29/2017

Number of queries generated in 

FinCEN Query System per month

Strategic and 

Business Results Over target Monthly Number 560000.00 586940.00 11/30/2017

Cost per BSA filing transaction 

(electronically filed)

Financial 

Performance Under target Annual Dollars 0.11 0.10 09/29/2017

BSA IT Mod mission critical system 

availability

Strategic and 

Business Results Over target Quarterly Percentage 99.00 99.75 09/29/2017

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 37.40 11/30/2017

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 66.00 09/29/2017