FinCEN Registration
The federal filing a money services business makes with FinCEN, on Form 107, to put itself on the Treasury’s MSB register. It must be renewed every two years. It is a notification that the business exists, not an approval of it.
Also called: MSB registration · FinCEN MSB registration · Form 107
A FinCEN registration is submitted online through the BSA E-Filing System, and nobody assesses it. There is no examiner reading the business plan, no capital test, no fit-and-proper review of the owners and no decision to wait for. The registration takes effect on filing, and the firm appears on a public list of registered money services businesses.
What the filing does do is fix the business inside the Bank Secrecy Act perimeter. From that point it owes an anti-money-laundering program, recordkeeping and reporting. Failing to register when required is itself a federal offense, which is why the filing matters even though it authorizes nothing.
In practice
FinCEN registration is a filing, not an approval, and it confers no authority to transmit money in any state. There is no such thing as a FinCEN license, so a firm describing itself as “FinCEN licensed” is misleading whoever it is talking to.
Example
A startup registers with FinCEN in March and starts taking customers in Texas in April. It is federally registered, and it is transmitting money in Texas without a Texas license. The registration did nothing to help. It simply documents, in a public file, exactly when the unlicensed activity began.
Commonly confused with
| Term | How it differs |
|---|---|
| Money Transmitter License | The license is a state’s permission to transmit money, granted after review; the registration is a federal notification granted after no review at all. |
See also
- Money Transmitter LicenseA money transmitter license is permission granted by a US state for a company to receive money from the public in that state and pay it, or its value, to someone else. Each state licenses separately.
- Money Services BusinessA money services business is a category in US federal law under the Bank Secrecy Act, covering seven capacities: dealer in foreign exchange, check casher, issuer or seller of money orders or traveler’s checks, provider of prepaid access, seller of prepaid access, money transmitter, and the US Postal Service.
- FinCENThe bureau of the US Treasury that administers the Bank Secrecy Act. FinCEN writes the anti-money-laundering rules applying to financial institutions, receives suspicious activity and currency transaction reports, and maintains the federal register of money services businesses.
- Foreign Money Services BusinessA foreign MSB is a money services business located outside the United States that does business wholly or in substantial part within the United States, and must therefore register with FinCEN. Canada uses the same term for a separate status of its own.