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Shrinking Budget Hampers FinCEN’s Plan to Modernize SAR Database, Say Lawmakers
By Colby Adams
printBudgetary constraints and understaffing are hampering U.S. Treasury Department plans to update technology used by its financial intelligence unit to gather and store data, U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended in a December 2009 report that the department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) modernize its databases to better store financial data, including suspicious activity reports. FinCEN currently outsources data storage to the Internal Revenue Service, according to the GAO. But expected budget changes will likely nix efforts by FinCEN to modernize its databases by 2014 as originally planned, lawmakers and panelists said at hearing Wednesday...
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