Bank Secrecy Act: 84 Stat. 1114 (Public Law 91-508), 26 October 1970, Title I (Financial Recordkeeping) and Title II (Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act)

The 1970 Act requiring insured banks and other financial institutions to keep records and authorizing the Treasury to require reports that "have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory investigations or proceedings." FinCEN calls it and its amendments the Bank Secrecy Act.

Date

1970-10-26

Kind

case-file

Source

U.S. Government Publishing Office (govinfo), United States Statutes at Large, vol. 84

Retrieved

2026-10-12

Docket

84 Stat. 1114 (Public Law 91-508; H.R. 15073), Title I at 1114, Title II at 1118

Rights

An Act of Congress, a federal work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The text was read from the Statutes at Large PDF published by the U.S. Government Publishing Office on govinfo.

Public Law 91-508 (H.R. 15073), dated October 26, 1970, is “An Act To amend the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to require insured banks to maintain certain records, to require that certain transactions in United States currency be reported to the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes.” Title I, “Financial Recordkeeping”, begins with a finding that “adequate records maintained by insured banks have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, and regulatory investigations and proceedings.”

Title II “may be cited as the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act”. Its section 202 states the purpose: “to require certain reports or records where such reports or records have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory investigations or proceedings.” (84 Stat. 1118.) The page number 1118 is inferred from the running heads in the govinfo text layer.

The name “Bank Secrecy Act” is not printed in the text. FinCEN’s page says: “The Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970, its amendments, and the other statutes relating to the subject matter of that Act, have come to be referred to as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).” FinCEN’s history page adds: “The BSA was established in 1970 and has become one of the most important tools in the fight against money laundering.” FinCEN’s timeline also records a 1974 Supreme Court decision upholding the Act; that decision was not opened here.