US Treasury wants banks to be better at filing cyber scam reports after noting nearly $13 billion in losses since 2023

The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is urging financial institutions to enhance their reporting of cyber scams, particularly those targeting the elderly, after detecting nearly $13 billion in losses since 2023. FinCEN flagged financial moves across 33,904 filings, but actual losses could be significantly higher due to potential double-counting.

Only 1,300 institutions filed reports, with 10,082 (29.7%) of them related to the exploitation of the elderly. FinCEN has introduced a new suspicious activity report keyword, FIN-2026-SCAMCENTERS, which institutions must use to indicate potential scam centers. They are also asking for additional information such as chat logs, scammer phone numbers, social media handles, wallet addresses, transaction hashes, and URLs victims were directed to.

This move aims to help institutions better trace the life cycle of scams and prevent these crimes, which are becoming an increasingly significant threat to Americans.