Imposition of Special Measure
Against North Korea as a Jurisdiction of Primary Money Laundering
Concern
Extension without change of a currently approved collection
No
Regular
03/31/2026
Requested
Previously Approved
36 Months From Approved
03/31/2026
127
16,588
6
16,588
0
0
Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act
(Section 311), codified at 31 U.S.C. 5318A, grants FinCEN the
authority, upon finding that reasonable grounds exist for
concluding that a foreign jurisdiction, financial institution,
class of transactions, or type of account is of “primary money
laundering concern,” to require domestic financial institutions and
financial agencies to take one or more “special measures.” Special
measures one through four, codified at 31 U.S.C.
5318A(b)(1)–(b)(4), impose additional recordkeeping, information
collection, and reporting requirements on covered U.S. financial
institutions. The fifth special measure, codified at 31 U.S.C.
5318A(b)(5), allows FinCEN to impose prohibitions or conditions on
the opening or maintenance of certain correspondent accounts.
Special measures are safeguards that protect the U.S. financial
system from money laundering and terrorist financing. In 2016,
FinCEN issued a final rule imposing the fifth special measure to
prohibit U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining
correspondent accounts for, or on behalf of, North Korean banking
institutions. The rule requires that U.S. financial institutions
take reasonable steps to avoid processing transactions through the
correspondent account of a foreign bank in the United States, if
such transactions involve a North Korean financial institution, and
it requires institutions to apply special due diligence to guard
against the use of correspondent accounts by North Korean financial
institutions. See 31 CFR 1010.659.
When these OMB control numbers
were last renewed in 2023 and 2024, FinCEN estimated that because
approximately 15,000 to 16,500 U.S. financial institutions could
potentially maintain correspondent accounts for foreign banks, they
were all equally likely to incur recordkeeping burdens. In 2025,
FinCEN refined its burden assignment methods by distinguishing
between all covered financial institutions that could potentially
become respondents if they were to maintain a correspondent account
for a foreign bank and those that might reasonably be expected to
actually be respondents in a given year because they bear indicia
of already maintaining such accounts. As a result, in 2025, FinCEN
revised the estimated expected number of U.S. financial
institutions that maintain a correspondent account for a foreign
bank to 127. This is the primary reason for the change in the
burden estimate. In addition, FinCEN revised its burden methodology
to account for a staggered decrease in burden in the years
following the first year after the publication and implementation
of a Section 311 final rule imposing special measure five. Thus,
the average time per respondent has been decreased from a uniform
burden assignment of one hour in any given year in the prior
renewals to 0.05 hours given the number of years elapsed since the
first year in which the final rule implemented this imposition of
special measure five.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.
03/31/2026
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Imposition of Special Measure Against North Korea as a Jurisdiction of Primary Money Laundering Concern