I heard from someone in BSA claiming that the banks in NJ have to collect and enter personal information on the system for a possible CTR filing from ALL transactors including non-customers regardless of the transaction amount after each deposit. According to that person's statement, a teller would have to ask for a SSN, name, and address of a non-customer who came into make a $50 dollar cash deposit for his sister, just in case that person comes back to deposit additional $9,551 in cash on the same business day and we need to file a CTR. This doesn't make sense to me. Does any bank actually obtain personal information from every single people who come to the bank to conduct a transaction?

I'd be asking someone in BSA for a state law citation from NJ to back up their claim. There is no federal requirement for such an aggregation policy.

We recently started a process to obtain conductor information on individual cash transactions of $6,000+ (primarily in anticipation of the new FinCEN CTR expectations, but also to help identify potential structuring). Would love to hear what others are doing.

Thank you. I asked that person if we are required by law to do that and all he told me was that he's been criticized by examiners for not doing so and that's how banks in NJ aggregate transactions for CTRs. Just wanted to see if this is in any way true. Personally I think that person's statement is ridiculous. And I don't understand how we would explain to a non-customer, who's only making $10 cash deposit for a friend that we need to get his/her personal information.

This person is saying that we need to get the transactor information on ALL deposits even if it's only $1. I could maybe understand your policy for setting a threshold of large amount like $6,000, but not the other person's.

There may also be something in your policy that states that you will get the info. If it is in your policy/procedures and you do not obtain it you could be criticized.

Have never come across this in NJ. Sounds like a particular examiner or something in a bank's program.

Nothing in our BSA policy and bank procedures state anything about that. This person just joined the bank and saying we are filing CTRs all wrong. And that's just how things are done in NJ. I'm well aware of 'By or Behalf of' rule for CTRs but IMO what he's saying we should do seems to be a big stretch of the reporting requirements. I've been to other big banks and never once did they ask me for my ID for making a small deposit into someone else's account.

Are the examiners criticizing aggregation policy these days?

Are the examiners criticizing aggregation policy these days?

No. There is a reason why there is a multiple transactions indicator within the CTR. Sounds like whoever hired this "person who just joined the bank" failed to determine whether they had both knowledge and common sense.

Thank you for that comment! Unfortunately this person in the upper management position thinks he's 100% right so I don't think I can do anything about it. I gave up trying to reason with him. Thank you everybody.

I really don't think there is a "New Jersey rule," but know enough about research to be assured that I cannot prove a negative; i.e. no amount of research will prove it doesn't exist. Rather than chase someone else's rabbit, I would call 3 - 5 banks in New Jersey and speak to the BSA officer asking if they perfrom such a task because they believe it is required by law. Your conversations will give you the basis for a memo to the new guy asking for a citation to law or regulation.

Requiring identifying information for cash transactions may be reasonable somewhere around the $2500 mark. At $50 it's beyond ridicule. Of course, that doesn't mean an examiner would not suggest it...

I'm interested in this as well. We struggle with not having identfying information on some conductors because they never bring in more than $10,000.

As far as your process Cape Codder - do you ever get resistance from individuals to provide their information and if they question it, what reasoning do you give them?

Thanks!

what reasoning do you give them?


It is bank policy. If you choose to not be cooperative, feel free to close your account and find another bank.

I think gathering conductor information under the CTR threshold is basically a waste of time and resources. All BSA/AML software and even most core teller platform or deposit capture systems already have aggregation reports to assist in the detection of structuring.

In general, I'd agree that developing or acquiring the ability to do this isn't something I'd recommend, since there is no requirement for a bank to do so in order to aggregate activity. But once the bank has the software or system to do it (or if it's part of the bank's service provider's installed capabilities), to fail to use it is a strategic error.

We require tellers to ID the transactor on cash transactions $2500 and above for customers and noncustomers. The threshhold is set in the teller system and prompts the teller to request the information before completing the transaction. Once the teller enters the ID information into the system, it's saved. The next time that person does another cash transaction over $2500 the teller can do a search for their name, select the transactor's "profile" and complete the transaction without re-entering the info.

We run a daily CTR report that sorts cash activity by transactor. We've caught a couple of CTRs we would have otherwised missed if we had only run our cash report to sort by account number or didn't have the $2500 limit. We're a small shop & don't use any BSA/AML software.