What Rules Apply to the Confidentiality of a Sar Report

The SAR Rules require that a SAR be submitted electronically through the BSA e-filing system no later than 30 calendar days after the date of the first discovery of facts that may be used as a basis for filing a RAS. If no suspect can be identified, the deadline for submitting a SAR is extended to 60 days. Organizations may need to review transaction or account activity for a customer to decide whether or not to submit a DAS. The need to verify customer activities or transactions does not necessarily mean that a DAS must be filed. The deadline for filing an inquiry and rescue request begins when, during the course of its review or due to other factors, the organization knows or has reason to believe that the activity or transactions under review meet one or more of the definitions of suspicious activity. 70Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group, « Section 5 — Issues and Guidance, » The SAR Activity Review — Trends, Tips & Issues, Issue 1, October 2000, p. 27. As explained in more detail in the proposed rule,[24] the main purpose of clarifying the scope of the confidentiality provision is to ensure that persons involved in the Start Printed Page 75589 transaction and identified in the RAS cannot be informed directly or indirectly of the report due to potentially serious consequences. Therefore, the OTS, like FinCEN and the OCC, proposed to replace the text of the previous rule prohibiting the disclosure of the SAR to the person involved in the transaction with a general confidentiality provision for all SAR information that applies to all persons who are not entitled to receive such information under the Design Rules. With respect to « information that would reveal the existence of a RAD », institutions should therefore distinguish between certain types of statistical or abstract information or general suspicious activity discussions that could indicate that an institution has submitted SAR requests[25] and information that would reveal the existence of a SAR in a way that could potentially inform the person involved in the transaction. whether directly or indirectly. (1) Duty to report.

At the request of a federal mortgage bank, all savings associations under the jurisdiction of that federal home loan bank must report the data elements referred to in subsection (e) (2) of this section so that the Federal Home Loan Bank can use them in the calculation and publication of a variable-rate mortgage index. The proposed rule provided that any financial institution or director, officer, employee or agent of a financial institution who is subpoenaed or otherwise requested to provide SAR SAR or information that would reveal the existence of a SAR would refuse to provide the information based on this section of the Rules and 31 U.S.C. 5318(g)(2)(A)(i). and must notify FinCEN of the application and its response and, in the rules applicable to industries with parallel SAR requirements managed by a federal primary functional regulator[17], also report it to that regulatory authority. Understanding the filtering criteria of a surveillance system is essential to assess the effectiveness of the system. System screening criteria should be developed by examining specific high-risk products and services, customers and businesses, and regions. System filtering criteria, including specific profiles and rules, should be based on what is appropriate and expected for each account type. Account monitoring based solely on historical activity can be misleading if the activity does not actually match similar account types. For example, an account may have historical transaction activity that is significantly different from what is normally expected of this type of account (for example, a cheque cashing company that deposits large sums of money instead of withdrawing money to fund cheque cashing). VIENNA, Virginia. – The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today published a Final Rule – Confidentiality of Suspicious Activity Report, as well as a Notice and two guidance documents and a Notice on the availability of guidance that together clarify and strengthen the scope of confidentiality of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and expand the ability of some financial institutions to share SAR information with most affiliates. One commentator drew FinCEN`s attention to examples of « double deposit requirements » imposed by state regulators that do not meet the criteria of the first design rule for the administration of a state law that requires the financial institution to comply with the BSA or otherwise authorizes the state authority to ensure that the institution complies with the BSA.

According to the commentator, these government agencies require that copies of SARs submitted to FinCEN be provided to the state agency. [20] The confidentiality clause and the first design rule explicitly prohibit an institution from complying with such a request. Facilities should only make SAR information available to facilities that are explicitly listed in the design rules. In the event that a government entity not described in the building regulations needs access to SAR information to exercise its powers, that authority should request FinCEN to access that information. Institutions subject to such double filing requirements by an unauthorised entity should contact FinCEN in accordance with the procedures set out in this rule. No bank, director, officer, employee or representative of a bank reporting a suspicious transaction shall notify any person involved in the transaction that the transaction has been reported. A SAR and any information that would reveal the existence of a SAR is confidential, unless it is necessary to fulfill the obligations and responsibilities of the BSA. For example, the presence or even absence of a SAR must be kept confidential, as must the information contained in the SAR, to the extent that the information would reveal the existence of a SAR.