We have a joint account and the wife came in and took out $11,000.00. The husband who is also on the account was not with her. During conversation she mentioned she would be giving the funds to her husband to make a purchase.

Do you list the husband on the CTR?

My teller did a CTR and listed the wife as the person conducting the transaction for another, and the husband as the person on whose behalf transaction was conducted.

Since this is a joint account I would show the wife in Part 1 Section A, check box e in Section B and also show the husband in Part 1 Section A on page 2.

I agree with devsfan above. Both should be noted on the CTR as described.

Thank you both for the help.

They can tell you whatever they want to. If you were told that the money will be given to King Kong, are you going to put KK in the CTR as the beneficiary? The rule of thumb (for best practice) is if the joint signer is not present at the time of the transaction, there is no neeed to include in the CTR.

The fact of the matter is that you won't find any written guidance from FinCEN on its website on this question. There was old FinCEN guidance that was published by the FDIC in September 1995 about use of the "new [now old] CTR," but it's inactive. It said:

14. Question: Do all holders of the account, even if they do not come to the bank, need to be put on the revised CTR as "Person(s) on Whose Behalf Transactions(s) Is Conducted"?

Answer: For deposits, all those who are known to benefit from the transaction must be identified on the CTR. However, if a person makes a withdrawal from a joint account, only his name needs to be listed as the beneficiary of the transaction if: (1) he states that the withdrawal is on his own behalf or the financial institution knows that the person making the withdrawal is the only beneficiary, and (2) the financial institution has no reason to believe otherwise.

I don't find that particularly helpful, since it's not likely that someone's going to offer a statement that his/her withdrawal is on his/her own behalf, except perhaps if asked directly, and I just don't see a lot of tellers being assertive (customer perception: invasive) enough to ask.

In any event, FinCEN has said that any of that old guidance is irrelevant unless it's published on the FinCEN website, and I have not found any guidance there that addresses withdrawals from joint accounts.

Perhaps if enough bankers contact the FinCEN Help Desk with this question, there will be something forthcoming. In the meantime, I think that including all joint owners is the less risky approach.

Thank you John.

I agree with John, listing all parties to a joint account on the CTR for a withdrawal is the most conservative choice.

However, at a seminar today, one person said "the FDIC" had criticized them for including all parties to a joint account on CTR's for withdrawals. Immediately, another hand went up and that attendee said "the FDIC" had directed them to amend 54 CTRs where a withdrawal was made from a joint account and the bank had not listed all of the joint account owners on the CTR. (The banks were from the same FDIC region.)

Obviously, these mutually exclusive pronouncements came from individual examiners who went unchallenged, not "the FDIC." Put simply, "the FDIC" isn't qualified to have an opinion, that's FinCEN's job.

Whether it's still official or not, the 1995 Guidance is all there is and its wording on withdrawals borders on nonsense. If including all parties on deposits makes sense, then including all parties on withdrawals makes sense too.