WASHINGTON—CUNA is expressing support for a move by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to update Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) requirements for complying with a Bank Secrecy Act regulation requiring financial institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) Adjustment to the PRA burden calculation.
In a letter to FinCEN, CUNA said it believes this will “lead to greater accuracy in detailing the true cost to a financial institution for filing a SAR,” according to its letter of support.
Specifically, the proposal would expand the annual PRA burden estimate to cover three stages of the SAR production process:
- The review of cases based on monitoring alerts considered true positives
- The documentation of the decision not to turn a case into a SAR
- The SAR filing process, will help more accurately detail the cost to financial institutions for filing SARs
“Having the most accurate PRA burden calculation for SARs is important as financial institutions expend vast resources filing these reports,” CUNA’s letter reads. “Furthermore, understanding this complete burden is an important step in determining whether the information gathered from SARs is worth the cost to financial institutions to produce the reports.”