The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has statutory responsibility as administrator of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), and under multiple sections of the USA PATRIOT Act, to safeguard the financial system from the abuses of financial crime, including terrorist financing, money laundering, and other illicit activities. To fulfill its mission, FinCEN relies heavily on the use of BSA data, its primary and most important information asset. Over 14 million BSA forms or "reports" are filed by more than 200,000 financial institutions and money services businesses each year. FinCEN shares BSA data with law enforcement and regulatory entities, which rely heavily on its use in enforcement and compliance actions. The demonstrated value of BSA data generated by these filings impels FinCEN to properly manage and extract value from it, and find better and more effective ways to use it. The essential focus of the BSA Direct Retrieval and Sharing (BSA Direct R&S) system, a project conceived of in 2003, is the enhancement of the value and use of BSA data with the aim of helping FinCEN meet these strategic technology goals and support its mission priorities.