Is FinCEN Registration Free or Not?

Many folks seem okay with dishing out money to law-firms and consultants to have them ‘register’ on FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) Website, in the understanding that they are getting a license. That is now the case.

Watch the short video to learn more.

You may also want to watch these related videos:

• FinCEN Registration & Money Transmitter Licenses
• FinCEN MSB Definition for Transactions Under $1000 Per Person Per Day

Transcript:

Hello my name is Faisal Khan. I am a banking and a payment consultant. The question I got over the phone the other day is was someone saying that they were about to pay 40 thousand dollars to a law firm for being able to help them sign up at FinCEN. FinCEN is a Financial Crime Enforcement Network. There is a video I’ve done on what FinCEN is etc. please go see watch it. I’ll put it in the description below.

And the reason this company was almost willing to write a check for 40,000 dollars for someone to sign up and fill out a basic form – which by the way would take you probably three or four minutes to fill out – was because they were not aware. They thought that by registering with FinCEN they were getting a license and this law firm was charging forty thousand to fill up for licenses where there would be active in all the states where they were tick mark. That is not the case.

The FinCEN form is a reporting form. It’s a mandatory Federal registration but it is not a license grant. It is used for reporting when you click on the activities of all the states you want to do business in and that simply informs FinCEN that these the states that you will be doing business in. It does not grant you a license. You still need to go to the individual financial regulator in the state you want to pick up customers, U.S. Customers from and obtain a license from them. So please, do not pay any fee for FINCEN or registration. It’s a very simple form. It is not a license.

It takes about 5 to 10 minutes to fill it out there…It is very self explanatory. But as I said it’s not a license and all of this tick marks that you do of the states that you want to be active in, you’re simply informing the federal government these are the states we want to do business with. The federal government is not granting you a license. I hope I was able to save you some money over there and some sanity. Till next time, have a good one.

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This page was last updated on December 10, 2019.