Coin Center Criticizes Bank Secrecy Act, Demands Regulation

cryptonews.com:

Coin Center, the leading non-profit dedicated to research surrounding cryptocurrencies, calls the Bank Secrecy Act too “broad” for its own good, according to their most recent report.

Published earlier this month, the report (appropriately titled Broad, Ambiguous or Delegated: Constitutional Infirmities of the Bank Secrecy Act) challenges the adequacy of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, claiming that the policy is “riddled with sweeping powers and expansive terms.” 

More specifically, Coin Center argues that the Bank Secrecy Act’s definition of what constitutes a “financial institution” is too widely ambiguous.

“In the Bank Secrecy Act, ‘financial institution’ has a 425-word definition divided into 26 distinct and very specific sub-categories of persons or businesses,” reads the report. 

The report from Coin Center then goes on to extensively list the numerous different sub-entities categorized as such, including travel agencies, investment bankers, pawnbrokers, and commercial banks.

The report continues that there is a broad sub-category with the definition of financial institution called “money transmitters” who are regarded as a “licensed sender of money or any other person who engages as a business in the transmission of funds.”

Coin Center points out the absurdity of the potential interpretation of this definition, going on to note that nearly all businesses will require some sort of transmission of funds.

“Plainly, it appears that a person accepting payment for her labor could be included within this definition,” the report reads.

Coin Center continues its scrutiny of the act by stating “this interpretive flexibility is either a fundamental ambiguity in the statute or it is the mark of a statute with deliberately broad