If we issue a cashiers check out of a customers checking or savings account for over $3,000.00 and later that same day the customer makes a cash deposit greater than $3,000.00, do these two separate transactions trigger an MIR?

I read the following from FINCen's website, but it talks about the purchases and not the source of the funds.

"Contemporaneous purchases of
the same or different types of instruments
totaling $3,000 or more shall be
treated as one purchase. Multiple purchases
during one business day totaling
$3,000 or more shall be treated as one
purchase if an individual employee, director,
officer, or partner of the financial
institution has knowledge that
these purchases have occurred."

Technically - yes.

Can you point me to any resources which will support this argument?

This is helpful, but it doesn't address my example.

A check is issued off an account for greater than $3,000.00. The source of the check is from a share.
Later that day, a cash deposit is made into the account/share for greater than $3,000.00.

Technically the cash deposit was not used to purchase the instrument, but if we are required to aggregate all purchases of monetary instruments on an account for one day into a single transaction, does this also mean that cash deposits on the same account should be aggregated as well?


The source above states:
"FinCEN anticipates that, in selling monetary instruments to deposit account holders, a financial institution will already maintain most of the information required by §103.29 in the normal course of its business, and therefore the requirement to fully comply with the regulation should not be overly burdensome."
I could be making this more complex than necessary, but I want to make sure that our current procedures are compliant with BSA requirements.

Take a look at this: http://www.ffiec.gov/bsa_aml_infobase/documents/BSA_AML_Man_2007.pdf

It says if the money is deposited "first", but we do the MIL if the cash deposit happens the same day. For us this is easier, because our reports will show the cash activity and the MI purchase. We don't want to spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what time the two transactions took place.

I agree with BSAdiva'a approach.

"However, FinCEN takes the position that when a customer purchases a monetary instrument in amounts between $3,000 and $10,000 using currency that the customer first deposits into the customer’s account, the transaction is still subject to the recordkeeping requirements of 31 CFR 103.29."

"First deposits" IMHO does not mean the order of the transactions - it means that the cash is run through the deposit account during the same aggregation period the bank uses for recordkeeping purposes.

FinCen returned my call and informed me that in this senerio we do not have a requirement to document the situation as the instrument was not purchased with cash. They said however, that this could be a form of structuring and that we might want to internally document these instances and monitor the accounts incase we see a trend.

Thanks for your helpful insight!

I think FinCEN might need to reread their own official interpretation. That is the only one your regulator is going to refer too.

It's interesting that FinCEN recently issued guidance on CTR exemptions and took a precisely opposite view when it comes to running, for example, a Phase II exempt customer's currency exchange through the customer's account: