MSB SARs: The Counter Clerk's Thirty Days
A money transmitter sees odd transfers long before any bank does. What the SAR rule for money services businesses asks once someone at the counter notices.
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The shop has a thick glass window and a rack of phone cards. On payday the line runs out the door. People send money home. The clerk knows the regulars by name.
Then a stranger comes in. He comes back the next day, and the day after. Each time the story is new. She notices. What she does next is set by a federal rule.
Who the rule covers
FinCEN's guidance says whether a person counts as an MSB depends on the person's activities and not its formal business status. What the shop does is what counts. The sign out front does not.
FinCEN's guidance says the term money services business does not include a bank or foreign bank. Banks have a SAR rule of their own.
The dollar line
The line for a shop like this one is lower than a bank's. § 1022.320 requires a money services business to report a suspicious transaction that involves or aggregates at least $2,000.
Look at the word aggregates. Small sends that go together can add up. As a group they can cross the line.
Money orders get their own figure. § 1022.320 sets a $5,000 reporting threshold for an issuer of money orders or traveler's checks using clearance records.
When the clock starts
The clock does not start at the first send. It starts when the shop sees the problem. § 1022.320 requires a money services business to file each SAR no later than 30 calendar days after initial detection.
For the clerk, that is the day she tells her boss. The thirty days run from there.
Sends split up on purpose
The rule names this. § 1022.320 says a transaction designed through structuring or other means to evade Bank Secrecy Act requirements must be reported.
Structuring is the crime. The shop's job is to spot it in its own records, the kind a firm keeps for years. Then it reports. Three visits in three days may be just what the rule means.
Nobody is told
This part is hard in a shop where everyone talks. § 1022.320 says a SAR and any information revealing its existence are confidential and shall not be disclosed except as authorized.
The regulars will never hear of it. The stranger will not either. The clerk waves the next person up to the glass.