Bank Secrecy Act

Financial Institution Regulators' Compliance Examinations Gao ID: GGD-86-94 August 1, 1986

In response to a congressional request, GAO evaluated regulatory agencies' efforts to ensure that financial institutions comply with the Bank Secrecy Act.

GAO found that regulatory agencies placed a low priority on the act's requirement for examinations of financial institutions, which diminished their ability to ensure compliance with the act. GAO believes that these agencies could improve their ability to ensure compliance by: (1) better targeting of institutions to be examined; (2) improving model examination procedures for depository institutions; (3) consistently applying the model depository institution examination procedures; (4) improving Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) examination procedures; and (5) preparing sufficient documentation to support examination performance. GAO also found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which had good examination procedures and documentation, had difficulty identifying institutions for its examinations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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