Currency Transaction Report Article Index for
Currency
Website Links For
Currency
 

Information About

Currency Transaction Report




A CTR is filed by a bank teller upon a transaction exceeding $10,000 by a person in a single banking day. A bank employee who processes such a transaction must complete a CTR immediately following the transaction and have their supervisor review it. The forms must be completed and filed on each deposit, withdraw, Currency Exchange , or cash Wire Transfer over the $10,000 limit. Multiple transactions totaling more than $10,000 in one banking day must be counted as one transaction, and reported accordingly.

When the first version of the CTR was introduced, the only way a suspicious transaction of less than $10,000 was reported to the government was if a bank teller called an agent and provided the information. This was due, primarily, to the concern by Financial Institution s about the right to financial privacy. On October 26, 1986, with the passage of the Money Laundering Control Act , the right to financial privacy was no longer an issue. As part of the Act, Congress had stated that a financial institution could not be held liable for releasing suspicious transaction information to Law Enforcement . As a result, the next version of the CTR had a suspicious transaction check box at the top. This was in effect until April 1996 when the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) was introduced.