Virtual Currency Regulations: Key Insights for the Payments Industry — Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
Navigating New Compliance Challenges: The Impact of the Money Transmitter Modernization Act on Payroll Processing - Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
On August 6th, 2025, following a four-week trial, a jury found Roman Storm, the founder of a crypto mixing service called Tornado Cash, guilty of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The jury was...more
In March, we wrote about the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issuing a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) aimed to combat Mexican-based drug cartels. The GTO signals Treasury’s efforts to...more
On March 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) in the Federal Register that will impose new obligations on many money services...more
In the latest episode of Payments Pros, hosts Keith Barnett and Carlin McCrory discuss the latest FinCEN and OFAC guidance on virtual currency transactions, specifically tailored for companies in the payments industry. They...more
We have written previously about the new administration’s significant shifts in its approach to criminal enforcement and prosecution of money laundering cases. Specifically, we wrote about shifts at the U.S. Department of...more
Money services businesses (MSBs), a category which includes money transmitters (e.g., PayPal and other payment facilitators), as well as administrators and exchangers of convertible virtual currencies (e.g., Bitcoin...more
On April 20, 2024, the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities (“DoBS”) issued a policy statement (“Policy Statement”) to “clarify” that the Department’s interpretation of the term “money” in the Pennsylvania Money...more
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is an umbrella term used to describe financial services provided outside of the traditional markets, that rely on blockchain technologies to create innovative products instead of relying on...more
Among the many state licenses that can impact financial services companies, money transmitter licensing can be among the harder to figure out. In addition to uncertainties about digital currency and developing technologies,...more
The next item in McGlinchey's Deep Dive into Payments Series is a podcast on money transmission by attorneys Jeff Barringer, Amy Greenwood-Field, and Aaron Kouhoupt. Their discussion centers around the impacts of money...more
The next item in McGlinchey’s Deep Dive into Payments Series is on money transmission by attorneys Jeff Barringer, Amy Greenwood-Field, and Aaron Kouhoupt. Their discussion centers around the impacts of money transmission...more
On January 30, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) sent a follow-up letter to a California-based bank asking for additional responses to questions related to the bank’s...more
U.S. regulators are signaling heightened expectations for anti-money laundering compliance within the crypto industry. Although FinCEN issued guidance in 2013 interpreting virtual currency “administrators” and “exchanges” as...more
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) has made clear that businesses engaging in certain activities involving virtual currencies are subject to registration,...more
Recently proposed regulations could present significant compliance burdens for the banks and money service businesses that engage in cryptocurrency transactions with unhosted wallets or wallets held in jurisdictions specified...more
Kenneth Blanco, Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), recently provided remarks about FinCEN’s “Travel Rule” at the first truly-virtual Consensus Blockchain Conference. ...more
Last Wednesday, FinCEN Deputy Director Jamal El-Hindi appeared at the annual conference of the Money Transmitter Regulators Association and delivered prepared remarks. The topics of his address covered three issues of...more
The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has announced that it has settled charges against Eric Powers, a peer-to-peer exchanger of convertible virtual currency, for violating the registration,...more
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) recently issued guidance consolidating current FinCEN regulations, rulings, and guidance about cryptocurrencies and money services businesses (MSBs) under the Bank Secrecy Act...more
On April 18, 2019, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) announced its first enforcement action against a peer-to-peer virtual currency exchanger....more
Investors in Virtual Currency (VC) utilize the services of on-line “secure” platforms for buying, selling, transferring, and storing VC. The providers of these services are known as web-wallets (Coinbase is an example). ...more
As the value of bitcoin continues to soar (USD:BTC this past weekend exceeded $19,000.00:1), we thought that now would be a good time to emphasize the need to ensure regulatory compliance with the many federal and state AML...more
On July 26, FinCEN, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California (“NDCA USAO”), assessed a $110,003,314 civil money penalty against BTC-e a/k/a Canton Business Corporation (“BTC-e”)...more