Senate Republicans propose raising SAR threshold to $30K

• Key insight: The Senate Banking Committee’s Republican leadership is offering a bill to raise mandatory reporting thresholds in the fight against money laundering, including raising the currency transaction threshold from $10,000 to $30,000.
• Expert quote: “By increasing the reporting thresholds for currency transaction reports and suspicious activity reports, we are bringing much-needed modernization to a law that should root out financial crimes, not get in the way of everyday Americans.” — Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C.
• Forward look: The bill comes as the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has issued new guidance to banks aimed at easing their SAR compliance burden. 

Senate Banking Committee Republicans, led by committee chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., have introduced a bill that would raise the mandatory reporting thresholds for filing a suspicious activity report, or SAR,  for currency transactions, a move aimed at simplifying banks anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act compliance obligations. 

The bill, dubbed the “Streamlining Transaction Reporting and Ensuring Anti-Money Laundering Improvements for a New Era Act,” or STREAMLINE Act, would raise the currency transaction report threshold from $10,000 to $30,000 and tether the threshold to the Consumer Price Index, with updates due every five years.

The bill would also raise the $2,000 currency thresholds for nonbank money services businesses — companies that issue money orders or wire transfers, for example — to $3,000. And it would raise the threshold for reports on transactions where banks suspect or have reason to suspect illegal activity to be taking place from $5,000 to $10,000. Those updates would also be indexed to inflation and adjusted every five years.

Joining Scott in cosponsoring the legislation are Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Mike Rounds, R-S.D., Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Katie Britt, R-Ala., Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio.

Scott said the existing currency transaction reporting requirements are overly burdensome and result in law enforcement being flooded with reports that are not related to criminal activity, yielding little tangible benefit to either law enforcement or the banks. The new bill would reduce the number of reports, Scott said, and thus reduce the difficulties for banks, customers and enforcement agencies.

“For decades, banks and credit unions have been weighed down by outdated reporting requirements and layers of unnecessary paperwork that make it harder for them to serve consumers and small businesses,” Scott said. “By increasing the reporting thresholds for currency transaction reports and suspicious activity reports, we are bringing much-needed modernization to a law that should root out financial crimes, not get in the way of everyday Americans.”

Banks and compliance experts have long complained that the SAR reporting guidelines are overly burdensome and ultimately ineffective in uprooting financial crime, but there has been a spirited debate about whether the problem is in too many reports or inefficiency in detecting crime from those reports.

The legislation comes on the heels of TD Bank’s guilty plea last fall, in which the Canadian bank acknowledged failing to adequately stop money laundering and agreed to pay an eye-popping $3.09 billion in fines. Regulators imposed an asset cap on TD’s stateside operations and instituted other requirements that spurred millions of dollars in AML compliance investment at the bank.

The bill’s introduction also comes as the Trump administration is engaging in a broad effort to streamline and reduce banks’ regulatory compliance burdens across a range of areas. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network earlier this month issued new guidance to banks informing them that they would not necessarily have to file a SAR for currency transactions over $10,000, but only in circumstances where they have reason to believe that the customer is seeking to evade the currency threshold or that a crime is taking place. 

“SARs should deliver better outcomes by providing law enforcement the most useful information — not by overwhelming the system with noise,” said Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John Hurley in a statement accompanying the guidance’s announcement.

“Compliance requires real resources, and that’s why prioritization is crucial. At Treasury, we will continue to reform our Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism framework to de-prioritize low-value activity and direct compliance resources towards the most significant threats to our country.”