VIDEO: CTRs & SARS Critical vs Noncritical Fields

VIDEO: CTRs & SARS Critical vs Noncritical Fields

In this Compliance Clip (video), Adam talks about critical versus non-critical fields on FinCEN CTRs and SARs. Adam gets to the bottom line of when you are supposed to provide certain information on any FinCEN report. This is a BSA topic.


Video Transcript

The following is a transcript of this video.

This Compliance Clip is going to talk about Critical versus Non-critical fields on CTRs and SARs. This is a BSA topic. The question is, “What are the expectations for completing items with an asterisk, known as critical items, and those items without an asterisk, known as non-critical items, found on the FinCEN CTR or any other FinCEN report, like a Suspicious Activity Report?

The answer to this of course is going to come from a couple of different places. We can look at FinCEN’s March 2012 guidance, which was FIN-2012-G002. We can also look at FinCEN CTR Frequently Asked Question number one, and we can also look at FinCEN’s June 22, 2020, guidance. They've talked about this in several places and everything we're going to talk about here in this video are coming from all three of these places.

As far as the FIN-2012-G002, it says this, “For both critical and non-critical elements, financial institutions should complete those items for which they have relevant information, regardless of whether or not the individual items are deemed critical for technical filing purposes.” So for non-critical items, you need to be providing the information if you have it. Critical items force us to provide that information. There's an asterisk there, it says we have to and in fact, we have to affirmatively check a box to say we don't have the information if we don't have it. Sometimes people misunderstand the rules and they misunderstand the fact that if there's not an asterisk it means that it is not required. Just because it is not critical doesn't mean it's not required. Critical means it must be there to file the form. Otherwise, you have to affirmatively check a box that says you don't have the information. But a non-critical field is required. It's just not required to submit because you may not have the data for one reason or another. Let me rephrase that another way. Non-critical items are required if you have the information, that's the bottom line.

They go on to explain this a little bit better than what I just did. They say that for critical items, financial institutions must either provide the requested information or affirmatively check the unknown box that is provided on the FinCEN CTR and FinCEN Suspicious Activity Report or any other FinCEN report. For non-critical items, FinCEN does expect financial institutions to provide the most complete filing information available to the institution within each report, consistent with existing regulatory expectations. They say this information is going to be beneficial for law enforcement that's why they are requiring the information if you have it. That said, they do say that you don't have any additional collection responsibilities or any additional burdens, it's just you're supposed to report information if you have it. So if you have the information, you're supposed to report it if it is a non-critical item, also, if it is a critical item.

What they do say is you may leave non-critical fields blank. Those fields without an asterisk, you're allowed to leave blank if you do not have the information. But if you do, you need to provide it. These non-critical fields include things like an email address or a secondary phone number, or even the gender of somebody listed on a CTR or SAR. So if you have this information, you're supposed to provide it. One thing that's often not provided is the email address or website. Those are things that are required if you have it. If it's in your system, make sure it's getting on your CTRs and your SARs. That is what's required. 

To clarify this one other way, FinCEN released some guidance on June 22, 2020, and they say this, “There are no optional fields on any BSA report. There are critical mandatory fields that filers must complete. Non-critical fields must be completed if the information is known to the financial institution.” The bottom line is if you have the information, you must provide it on a CTR or SAR, regardless of whether it's a critical field or non critical field.

That's all I have for you for this Compliance Clip.

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