To accomplish these activities, FinCEN utilizes a team comprised of approximately 300 dedicated federal

PREPARED REMARKS OF ROBERT W. WERNER DIRECTOR FINANCIAL CRIMES ENFORCEMENT NETWORK BEFORE THE AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION/AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION MONEY LAUNDERING ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE OCTOBER 9, 2006 WASHINGTON, DC Good afternoon. I’m very pleased to be speaking with you today. I have found that opportunities to engage in public-private dialogues of this sort are extremely important to our efforts to continue developing and maintaining an effective partnership. I have been the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for seven months; long enough to have had the chance to assess the significant issues we are working to address and to formulate views on the strategic direction we need to take in order to maximize the impact of the Bank Secrecy Act regulatory scheme. I also recognize that your industry is keenly interested in understanding more about the value of the Bank Secrecy Act data in order to assess whether we have struck the correct cost-benefit balance in implementing this program. I think this is an ideal forum to have a frank discussion of these issues, and provide you with feedback about what FinCEN – and others – are doing with the valuable information that all of you in the financial community provide. FinCEN Overview For those of you who may not be familiar with FinCEN, let me start with a brief overview of our agency. FinCEN’s goal is to increase the transparency of the U.S. financial ...