A plan is being developed to give the government access to hundreds of millions of international banking records in an effort to trace and deter terrorist financing, even though many bankers say they already feel besieged by government antiterrorism rules that they consider overly burdensome.

The initiative, conceived by a working group in the Treasury Department, expands the government's database of financial transactions by gaining access to logs of international wire transfers in and out of American banks. Officials said that such transactions were used by the September 11th hijackers to wire more than $130,000, and are still believed to be vulnerable to terrorist financiers.

In recent interviews, government officials said that the effort, which grew out of a brief, little-noticed provision in the intelligence reform bill passed by Congress in December, gives them the tools to track leads on specific suspects and, more broadly, to analyze patterns in terrorist financing and other financial crimes. They said they were mindful of privacy concerns that such a system will provoke and wanted to include safeguards to prevent misuse of what would amount to an enormous cache of financial records.

The provision authorizes the Treasury Department to pursue regulations that require financial institutions to turn over "certain cross-border electronic transmittals of funds" that may be needed in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

Industry and government officials both agree that the plan for tracking overseas wire transfers will intensify pressure on banks and other financial institutions to comply with the ever expanding base of provisions to fight money laundering. The government's aggressive tactics since the attacks of 09/11/01 have already caused a backlash among banking compliance officers (and even some federal officials), who say the effort has gone too far in penalizing the financial sector for lapses and has criminalized what were once seen as technical violations.

The initiative, still in its preliminary stages, reflects heightened concerns by administration and Congressional officials about the government's ability to track and disrupt financing for terrorist operations by Al Qaeda and other groups, an effort identified by the President as a top priority in the campaign against terrorism.

Terrorist money has been difficult to identify, much less seize, because terror operations are conducted on relative shoestring budgets. According to the 9/11 commission, the planning and operations for the 09/11 attacks cost Al Qaeda between $400,000 to $500,000, with no unusual transactions found, while the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa cost only $10,000.

While counterterrorism officials have made inroads in tracking terrorist money, experts say that clear successes have been few and sporadic, and a number of recent reports have pointed up concerns regarding the government's ability to deter and disrupt such financing.

"I don't think we really have a full grasp of how to deal with the problem yet," said Dennis M. Lormel, the former head of the FBI's terrorism-financing unit. "The framework is certainly getting better, but in general, we don't have the full capability yet to get at the money."

The federal government has taken a number of aggressive steps since the 9/11 attacks to disrupt terrorist financing. It has expanded its list of terrorist-related groups banned from financial dealings with the United States, it has set up new investigative offices to track terrorist financing, and it has required more financial data and tighter compliance from financial industries as part of the USA Patriot Act and other measures.

Senior government officials have emphasized repeatedly that they want the financial sector to be a full partner in the stepped-up efforts to deter terrorist financing.

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