Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

 What is OFAC?

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury is a law enforcement agency. OFAC administers and enforces laws and regulations imposing economic and trade sanctions based on U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security goals. As with domestic and international wires, each wire a financial institution sends or receives is directly overseen by OFAC. On rare occasions, OFAC may instruct the the financial institution to reject, freeze, or temporarily block the transaction (wire) until further information related to the account holder (exchanger) is provided in order to release the funds.