Enforcement of the Bank Secrecy Act The Federal Reserve has also taken a number of recent enforcement actions to require depository institutions to improve their BSA programs and comply with other anti-money laundering obligations, including the reporting requirements that exist under the BSA.
The discount window is the Fed’s main tool for distributing money to the banking system in emergencies when bank-to-bank lending isn’t functioning, which is precisely the situation that prevailed in late 2007. But because banks were very reluctant to use the window, that key tool was broken. To offset the stigma effect, the Fed took a number of steps.