Looking to see what others are doing in regards to supporting documentation for CTR Exempt customers.

FFIEC guidance states "A bank must maintain a record of all designation of persons exempt from CTR reporting as filed with the Treasury for a period of five years from the designation date."

The form that I utilize (I believe I obtained it through BankersOnline, so many others may use it as well) has a section outlining total CTRs per year and aggregate cash total per year for a rolling 3 year period.

If I understand correctly, does that mean that the actual DOEP form itself is to be retained for 5 years from the date it was filed; and the "supporting documentation" that shows aggregate cash total and total CTRs filed per year is to be retained for a 3-year period?

Just want to make sure I'm not getting rid of anything I shouldn't be! Obviously I would be able to recover any transactional data within a 5-year period and beyond, but I wouldn't want to scramble in the event it was discarded and then requested.

Like any donated form, yours reflects the mental imprint of the author; e.g. there is no requirement or rationale for keeping track of aggregate cash totals. Some banks do track the number of CTR's filed, but I'm not sure how that would be connected to documenting exemptions. (BSA no longer talks about any retention period other than 5 years. There, the issue is when the clock starts to run.)

I know of no resource that explains this record retention requirement in detail, but I suggest you retain:
* DOEPs (or their equivalent) filed on paper as long as exemption is in place and be able to recreate a DOEP filed electronically for the same period of time.
* All documentation necessary to prove that an exemption was valid for five years going back from today.

My first suggestion is excessive, clearly more than the regulation would require. However, I've dealt with too many banks where examiners provided the list of exempt persons from the FinCEN data base and then asked the bank to produce the original filing for each of them. It's simply not worth arguing about.

I've been doing BSA for over 16 years and have retained all of my DOEP forms. When scanning became a viable option for us, the were scanned into an electronic file and when e-filing became available, electronic copies are retained. Being a 30 year veteran of banking, I still have the original paper DOEP forms squirreled away in the dark recesses of a filing cabinet somewhere too just in case.

Thank you both for the information

Keeping on this topic...does anyone have a checklist or form they use for the annual reviews for the exempted accounts? That they'd be willing to share

Dated example. Root around in the "Tools" section and I think you will find one that Brenda C contributed.

The checklist you need for an annual review is pretty much the same as the one would need for recognizing the customer as an exempt person to begin with. It's actually the requirements of the regulation that will tell you where you need to put a check, your only contribution will be the formatting.