So, in the United States there's a bunch of financial regulators. The DoJ regulates everyone by default, but there are also plenty of more specialized orgs like the SEC, CFTC, FDIC, LGBT, and OCC. Which org is most focused on payment processors like Stripe and PayPal?
1 Answer
Enforcement of the law, 31 U.S. Code § 5330, falls on the Secretary of the Treasury and it is The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an organization within the Treasury, that performs the work. FinCEN itself is a joint operation of thirteen regulatory and law enforcement agencies.
There are other relevant areas of law, depending on what and how they are operating. For example, traveler's checks are considered in the same category as PayPal for purposes of this act, but are covered under other laws as well. They could be covered under the regulatory power of the Fed in some cases, or the FDIC. Wire fraud may come under a Justice Department agency or the Postal Inspection Service.
It depends on who is involved, what happened, where it happened, how it happened and so forth. For example, if there is an account agreement that was sent by mail, it could become a Postal matter. There are too many variables to answer this question.
There are also state regulators and in some cases, you could trigger less common federal regulators. For example, if it involved a brokerage account, it might involve the SEC depending on what parties were involved.
Finally, enforcement of wire laws isn't automatically restricted to a single agency. The Secret Service can investigate wire fraud, but so can other enforcement agencies. The law actually requires agencies to create an agreement on who will enforce the laws in a particular circumstance. See, for example, the enforcement powers language under 18 U.S. Code § 3056.
The simplest federal answer is FinCEN, but it is important to remember that it is behavior that is regulated under laws. So specific behaviors can come under the legal authority of more than one agency because it impinges on more than one law.
