Stablecoin Compliance Gets Real: What the FinCEN–OFAC GENIUS Act Proposal Means for Issuers — and Everyone Who Touches Their Coins
For years, stablecoin issuers operated in a gray zone: registered as money services businesses, screening against OFAC lists as a best practice, but without a purpose-built federal AML rulebook. That era is ending. In April 2026, FinCEN and OFAC issued a joint proposed rulemaking implementing the anti-money laundering and sanctions provisions of the GENIUS Act […]
The Crypto ATM Reckoning: Indiana’s Ban, Wisconsin’s Blueprint, and the New State Compliance Baseline for Kiosk Operators
The numbers finally caught up with the machines. In 2025, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged more than 13,400 complaints tied to crypto ATMs, with reported losses exceeding $388 million — up 58% year over year — and more than half of the victims were over 50. State legislatures noticed. Thirteen state crypto kiosk […]
Sanctioned, Renamed, Back in Business: What FinCEN’s “Successor Entity” Move Against H-Pay Means for Your Screening Program
In October 2025, FinCEN did something it rarely does: it used its most powerful tool — a special measure under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act — to sever Cambodia-based Huione Group, a conglomerate linked to at least $4 billion in laundered proceeds from pig-butchering scams and other transnational fraud, from the U.S. financial […]
Payroll Fraud Meets AML: What FinCEN’s New Advisory (FIN-2026-A002) Means for MSBs, Payroll Firms, and FinTechs
On June 5, 2026, FinCEN — jointly with the FDIC, OCC, and NCUA and in coordination with the IRS — issued Advisory FIN-2026-A002, targeting illicit finance tied to unlawful employment and payroll fraud. On the surface, this looks like an employment and tax enforcement issue. Read it closely, and it is one of the most […]
The Post-MiCA Era Begins: What the July 1 CASP Deadline and AMLA’s Ramp-Up Mean for Global Crypto Compliance
On July 1, 2026, the era of transitional tolerance for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) in the European Union officially ended. The grandfathering window under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) closed, meaning any firm serving EU customers without full MiCA authorization is now operating illegally. At the same time, the EU’s new Anti-Money Laundering Authority […]
Whose Compliance Program Is It, Anyway? Sponsor Banks, FinTechs, and the New AML Accountability in BaaS
For a decade, Banking-as-a-Service ran on a comfortable fiction: the sponsor bank “owned” BSA/AML compliance, and the FinTech simply rode on its charter. That fiction is now officially dead. Between the April 2026 joint AML program proposal from the FDIC, NCUA, and OCC, FinCEN’s parallel rulemaking under the AML Act of 2020, and a steady […]
Stablecoins Have Become Crime’s Favorite Rail: Inside FATF’s Seventh Virtual-Asset Review
On July 16, the Financial Action Task Force published its Seventh Targeted Update on the implementation of its standards for virtual assets and virtual asset service providers — and the headline is blunt: organised crime groups are moving billions of dollars in illicit proceeds through the crypto sector by exploiting the gaps between jurisdictions that […]
The Perimeter Just Moved: Maine’s Sweepstakes Ban Is Live — and Payment Processors Are Now in the Line of Fire
Yesterday, July 14, Maine’s LD 2007 took effect, prohibiting online sweepstakes games built on dual-currency systems and casino-style simulations. Two weeks earlier, on July 1, Indiana’s HB 1052 did the same, establishing civil penalties for conducting a sweepstakes game in the state. With Connecticut, Montana, New Jersey, California, and New York having acted in 2025, […]
From Paperwork to Performance: FinCEN’s AML Program Overhaul and the 12-Month Runway Ahead
By Syed Khalid, CEO & Fractional Chief Compliance Officer, FinCheck · July 13, 2026 The most consequential rewrite of U.S. AML program rules in a generation is now moving toward the finish line. FinCEN’s proposed rule to reform anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) program requirements — published in April 2026 […]
Reading the National Threat Map: What Treasury’s 2026 Money Laundering Risk Assessment Means for Your Program
By Syed Khalid, CEO & Fractional Chief Compliance Officer, FinCheck · July 1, 2026 Every few years, the U.S. Department of the Treasury pulls back the curtain and tells the private sector where the money is actually moving. Its 2026 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment (NMLRA), released alongside companion assessments on terrorist financing and […]