Congress Passes New BSA Laws Due To Threats Including “Decentralized Cryptocurrencies”

The COUNTER Act of 2019 (H.R. 2514), which stands for the “Coordinating Oversight, Upgrading and Innovating Technology, and Examiner Reform Act of 2019,” passed the House of Representatives last week and is now under consideration by the U.S. Senate. The bill will modernize the laws for the Bank Secrecy Act, including new “Innovation Labs” at each of the U.S. federal regulators to advance the way BSA is applied by financial institutions.

A House Report published by the Financial Services Committee provided to accompany the Bill to the floor noted the BSA laws have not been updated in 18 years. In describing the risks that now exist in the world we live in today, the Report states, “The BSA defines the roles and responsibilities for agencies and industry to enable defense of the United States’ financial system…The last major reforms to the BSA were in 2001 before the rise of lone-actor terrorists, decentralized cryptocurrencies,…