Any transfer of $10k or more (and in many cases less) requires reports by the financial institutions to the IRS and potentially other government agencies. Why that would cause huge delays I don't know. Most likely Chase just wanted to make some money on the float.

The Patriot Act kyc reporting requirements would have nothing to do with the delay. The reporting requirement is simply that. It isn't a wait and see to confirm it's ok. You just report the transaction after the fact.

It's all about the float.

The federal deposit rate for banks is 2.35% right now. That's $64 to the bank for every million dollars every day it is deposited at the fed.

Now imagine a large bank like chase is dealing with billions of dollars a day in transfers. Hold it several days when you receive a transfer and hold it several days before sending a transfer and you are making literally millions of dollars every month just for dragging your feet on transfers.