Overview
- The Auditor-General's report, tabled Thursday, found that FinTRAC took an average of 112 days to produce financial intelligence after law enforcement flagged concerns.
- Half of surveyed recipients said disclosures arrived too late to be useful, which the report says limited law-enforcement ability to freeze assets, stop transfers or identify suspects.
- The audit blamed outdated IT, manual processes and duplicated analyst work that is not stored centrally, and it noted FinTRAC’s multi-year modernization lacks a final cost or completion date.
- FinTRAC still faces about 2,500 outstanding registration and renewal requests from money services businesses after a 2024 cyberattack forced its systems offline.
- The FATF recently downgraded Canada’s supervision to 'partially compliant,' and FinTRAC has pledged roughly $37 million in extra supervisory resources plus further IT assessments, including a review of goAML and a phased rollout planned for next winter.