FinCEN Creates CTR Exemption for Armored Car Transactions

FinCEN Bank Compliance

On July 12, FinCEN issued a ruling to exempt financial institutions from collecting data about certain armored car transactions required for Currency Transaction Reports (CTR). Under a 2009 ruling, FinCEN clarified that when a financial institution customer hires an armored car service (ACS) to conduct business on its behalf, the customer’s financial institution is subject to the same CTR requirements as it would be with any other third-party facilitating a transaction for a customer. FinCEN now recognizes that the 2009 ruling created practical issues in application – financial institutions have had difficulty differentiating transactions conducted by a given ACS on behalf of the institution from those the ACS conducted on behalf of a customer, and have had trouble obtaining drivers’ personal information required for the CTR. With its current ruling, FinCEN authorized an exception to the CTR data collection and aggregation requirements that applies only to deposits or withdrawals conducted by an ACS employee pursuant to instructions from the financial institution’s customer or from a third party.