Washington – The U.S. Treasury Department won’t meet a December 2007 deadline to require banks to report international wire-transfer data as part of a government effort to combat terrorist financing, a senior agency official said.
The congressionally mandated deadline isn’t realistic because Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson hasn’t yet signed off on a study of the program’s feasibility, Robert Werner, director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Treasury’s enforcement arm, told reporters Monday.
“If the secretary were to approve the plan we’ve set forth, it would be an incremental approach over quite a number of years,” Werner said.
A 2004 law directed the Treasury secretary to conduct the feasibility study and report to Congress as part of an effort to fight terrorist financing. Under existing law, financial companies are required to maintain the data without having to report it to Treasury unless it’s requested.
In comments to regulators, the American Bankers Association questioned whether the benefit to law enforcement is worth the potential cost to the industry.
Werner said the Treasury study shows the program is feasible and that there is value to collecting the data.
The agency would need to build a system that can handle as many as 500 million transactions annually, he said.
“The money trail is just going to be that much more robust,” Werner said.
