All in BSA

Continuing SAR Narrative: Referencing Prior SARs

Adam Witmer
BSA

One of the biggest challenges when writing the narrative for a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) is to be able to balance writing in a way that someone reading the SAR can determine if additional action needs to take place and writing in a way that provides too many details.  This is especially true for a continuing SAR where the activity on the current SAR is consistent with activity that was included in prior SAR filings.  The concern is whether information that was included on a prior SAR should again be included in the narrative, or whether this information is considered redundant.  Fortunately for BSA Officers, FinCEN has provided some guidance as to what should be included in the narrative of a continuing SAR filing.

FinCEN Updates SAR Form

Adam Witmer
BSA, Regulatory Update

FinCEN recently announced that they will be revising the Suspicious Activity Report.  The new version of the SAR will be available in June of 2018 and will include several changes.  FinCEN is currently in the process of developing and testing the updated SAR and has released some mock-ups of the proposed SAR, though they say that the final SAR may be slightly different.  This is the first round of updates to the SAR form since releasing the new electronic version of the form a few years back.  While we saw changes to the...

SAR Filing Deadline

Adam Witmer
BSA

As a financial institution, SAR reporting is a critical function that can result in violations being cited in an exam report.  Because of this, it is extremely important to fully understand the reporting rules, of which there are quite a few.  One of those rules relates to the timeframe for SAR reporting - i.e., how long a financial institution has to file SAR.

Board Reporting SAR on Director

Adam Witmer
BSA

Several years ago, I had just arrived on-site for a bank visit when the BSA Officer quickly pulled me into her office and shut the door.  She had a dilemma: she had filed a SAR on a director and was faced with the challenge of how she was going to report that SAR to her board.  Her challenge was that the board had a practice of viewing a copy of the entire completed SAR and if she continued on with this practice, should be be disclosing to the director that the bank had filed a SAR on him.  This, of course, would be problematic for a number of reasons: unlawful disclosure and a very uncomfortable boardroom are two of them.  Fortunately for this BSA Officer, I had a simple solution for her.