Currency transaction report

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A Currency Transaction Report (CTR) is a report that U.S. financial institutions are required to file for each deposit, withdrawal, exchange of currency, or other payment or transfer, by, through, or to the financial institution which involves a transaction in currency of more than $10,000. Used in this context, currency means the coin and/or paper money of any country that is designated as legal tender by the country of issuance. Currency also includes U.S. silver certificates, U.S. notes, Federal Reserve notes and official foreign bank notes..

[edit] History

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 law enforcement. This was primarily due to the financial industry's concern 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 transactional 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.