Treasury watchdog on a 'full court press' to spread awareness of new business registry rules

• Over 700,000 companies have submitted reports to FinCEN's new beneficial ownership registry since Jan. 1, a senior Treasury official said.
• The agency anticipates approximately 32.6 million businesses to register by the end of the year.
• Brian Nelson, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said more outreach was needed.

WASHINGTON — Over 700,000 companies have submitted data to Treasury's new beneficial ownership information registry, a senior Treasury official said on Wednesday. But the number is far below what's needed to reach an estimated 32.6 million registrants by year's end.

"I think as people in businesses become more aware of the requirement, the sort of provable experience of it only taking 15 to 20 minutes ... I feel like, the sense out there (is) people are feeling more comfortable with this, but we recognize we have a lot of work left to do," Brian Nelson, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence for the Treasury Department, said during an interview at the Hudson Institute, a think tank here.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network launched the BOI registry on Jan. 1. Established under the Corporate Transparency Act, the registry is intended to be a tool to aid law enforcement, banks and regulators to detect financial crimes.

Certain companies created or registered to do business before New Year's Day have up to one year to file. Newly created companies have up to 90 calendar days to register their beneficial ownership information, according to FinCEN.

The rate of filings has picked up from the more than 100,000 recorded a week after the registry opened, but companies should be registering at a pace of about 2.7 million per month to meet stated expectations.

Nelson said the