The Southwest Public Policy Institute applauds Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) and his colleagues for introducing the Streamlining Transaction Reporting and Ensuring Anti-Money Laundering Improvements for a New Era (STREAMLINE) Act, a commonsense reform that brings the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) into the 21st century.
For more than five decades, the Bank Secrecy Act has imposed outdated reporting mandates on banks, credit unions, and community lenders. These mandates burden financial institutions with unnecessary paperwork, inflate compliance costs, and divert resources away from detecting real criminal activity. The STREAMLINE Act addresses this imbalance by raising the reporting thresholds for Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) and Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for the first time since 1970, while preserving the BSA’s core mission of combating money laundering and terrorism financing.
Why It Matters
Inflation and technological change have rendered the original reporting thresholds obsolete. A $10,000 transaction in 1970 is equivalent to more than $80,000 today — yet banks must still report every cash transaction above that same $10,000 limit. This has led to millions of unnecessary reports that waste time and resources without improving public safety.
The compliance overload harms both financial institutions and consumers:
- Community banks and credit unions are forced to dedicate staff and technology to low-value, low-risk filings instead of expanding services to underserved communities.
- Ordinary Americans, especially small business owners, religious organizations, and immigrant entrepreneurs, face the risk of being “debanked” simply for operating in cash-intensive or politically unfavored industries.
- Law enforcement is flooded with irrelevant reports, making it harder to identify the truly suspicious activity that threatens national security.
The STREAMLINE Act: Common-Sense Reform
The STREAMLINE Act raises the BSA’s outdated reporting thresholds to reflect economic reality:
- Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs): $10,000 → $30,000
- Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs): $2,000 → $3,000 and $5,000 → $10,000
It also requires the Department of the Treasury to update these thresholds every five years to account for inflation, ensuring the law remains effective and relevant.
These adjustments cut red tape, enhance efficiency, and refocus enforcement on genuine criminal threats rather than lawful activity. Importantly, the bill continues to equip law enforcement with the tools needed to track illicit finance while restoring fairness and access in the financial system.
SPPI’s Position
As a leading advocate for consumer choice, free markets, and financial inclusion, the Southwest Public Policy Institute strongly supports this effort to modernize the BSA.
By streamlining compliance, the STREAMLINE Act:
- Promotes financial freedom for individuals and small businesses across the Southwest;
- Strengthens law enforcement effectiveness by improving the quality, not the quantity, of financial intelligence;
- Advances economic opportunity by reducing regulatory costs for community lenders; and
- Reinforces the principles of fairness and proportionality in the financial system.
Americans for Free Markets (AFFM) is a Washington, D.C.–based advocacy organization dedicated to promoting competition, consumer freedom, and regulatory reform within the financial sector. AFFM works closely with policymakers, industry experts, and allied think tanks to advance policies that strengthen financial access and fairness while reducing government overreach. SPPI is proud to stand alongside AFFM in supporting the STREAMLINE Act and broader efforts to end harmful debanking practices and modernize outdated regulations.
Conclusion
The Bank Secrecy Act should protect Americans — not punish them. The STREAMLINE Act restores common sense to anti-money-laundering enforcement by ensuring that banks focus on real criminals, not law-abiding customers.
SPPI urges Congress to pass this important legislation swiftly to modernize financial regulation, end harmful debanking practices, and reaffirm that access to the financial system is not a privilege — it’s a necessity for economic liberty.