Sponsors (2)
The bill shifts the balance toward stronger individual financial privacy, clearer limits on agency and Fed powers, and expanded payment choice—while raising risks of weaker financial surveillance, higher litigation and transitional costs, and slower modernization of payment and regulatory tools.
Taxpayers and individuals gain stronger statutory limits on government access to their financial records and new private remedies (criminal penalties, statutory and compensatory damages), reducing surveillance risk and increasing accountability for improper disclosures.
Financial institutions receive clearer, narrowed legal standards and a good‑faith reliance exception that reduce uncertainty about when they must disclose customer records to government actors.
Taxpayers and market participants are protected from continued centralized collection of personally identifiable information by terminating the CAT, and CAT/FINRA entities must reimburse certain fees, improving privacy and returning some collected funds.
Law enforcement and national‑security agencies lose or have narrowed access to consolidated financial and trading data, which could hinder detection of money laundering, fraud, sanctions evasion, and terrorism financing.
Financial institutions and taxpayers face increased litigation exposure and large potential liability because daily statutory damages, compensatory awards, and fee recovery could lead to high awards and defensive lawsuits.
Terminating the CAT removes a consolidated market surveillance data source, creating fragmentation that could raise compliance and monitoring costs for exchanges, brokers, and regulators and weaken market‑integrity tools.
Based on analysis of 16 sections of legislative text.
Limits government access to financial records and narrows Bank Secrecy Act authorities; adds criminal/civil penalties, ends the CAT, bans Fed retail CBDC, and protects consumer use of convertible virtual currency.
Restricts federal access to individuals' financial records and narrows several Bank Secrecy Act authorities while adding criminal and stronger civil penalties for improper access or disclosure. It orders the SEC to terminate the Consolidated Audit Trail, bans Federal Reserve retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and Fed-maintained accounts for individuals, sets new congressional review rules for agency rulemaking, restores a de minimis reporting threshold for certain third-party settlement reports, and protects consumer use of convertible virtual currency and self-hosted wallets. The bill changes multiple statutes to limit government surveillance and centralized financial data collection, imposes timelines for SEC action (terminate the CAT within 30 days; conform rules/guidance in 120 days; reimburse collected CAT fees within 1 year), and creates new criminal penalties and statutory civil damages for violations of financial-privacy procedures. It also adds a congressional approval mechanism for executive rules and adjusts tax-reporting thresholds for third-party settlement organizations.
Introduced February 27, 2025 by Mike Lee · Last progress February 27, 2025