October 2010

I welcome and applaud that the ABA/ABA Money Laundering Enforcement Conference expanded this year to include the important roles fraud professionals play within their financial institutions to identify and root out fraud. There is no greater advocate on the importance of focusing on the nexus between fraud and money laundering than FinCEN. It really speaks to the core of FinCEN’s mission to safeguard the integrity of the financial system, and has been an area I have personally focused on since I became Director of FinCEN three and a half years ago.

The theme of your conference this year - Moving Forward: Issues and Answers for a Changing Industry – is particularly fitting given the issue I would like to discuss with you today. Change is something that your industry has always needed to adapt to. Even more than a decade ago, FiSCA recognized that financial services were evolving. Originally established in 1987 as the National Check Cashers Association (NaCCA), the name was changed in 1999 to the Financial Service Centers of America (FiSCA) to reflect the industry’s evolution.