Like everyone else, I was very relieved that FinCEN lifted the extensive searches for non-electronic records, but I am still concerned about wire records. Our wire records are not electronic, so does that mean we default back to the overall 6 months on transaction requirement? Or, does the fact that retention of funds transfers is specifically required by the 31 CFR 103.33 and is also specifically listed in the instructions for responding to Section 314(a) requests, mean that they do still have to be searched, even if they are not electronic?

I would love to not do the search of wire records past 6 months, but I certainly want to be sure that that is acceptable before I tell our wire desk they don't have to do the search. What are other banks without electronic wire records doing?

Right or wrong, we searched, manually, the last 6 months of wires. Since
314(a) was re-implemented, the wire room now keeps a spreadsheet in excel for
us to check against. Going forward, it should make it less painful.
Good luck.

You still have to perform the searches as initially required, the 6&12 month periods. You do not have to do the extended searches if you cannot do them electronically.

We also do not have our wires on electronic format, thus, we must complete a manual check for the last 6 months. However, we do have them in a database so the search goes much more quickly.

I attended a Money Laundering and BSA seminar yesterday and the speaker said for wire transfers and 314(a) requests, banks only need to check the name of the sender and the name of the receiver. He said, "since we only send wires for our customers and do not receive wires for non-customers (such as PUPID) we only have to search our CIF".
I think this is wonderful news, but wonder if this is correct.

The instructions explicitly state to check the sender on wires you send, and the receiver on wires you receive. In other words, you are only responsible for your half of the transaction. If you are only processing wires for your customers, then every wire transactor that you are required to search is in your CIF. So the information you have is correct

Although we are not required to report the other half of the transaction, is there any problem in reporting a match if it comes to your attention? We currently have that situation where our customer (who is not on a 314A request list) sent a wire to someone who is on one of the lists. My gut reaction is that we report the match. Any thoughts?

That would be my gut reaction, too, but I would defer to FinCEN for a specific directive. What I would do in that scenario is dig a little deeper into the activities of the customer on this end of the transaction. I would also recommend doing a little 314(b) with the receiving bank.

I called the FINCEN helpline and was told that while we were not required to search the beneficiaries of outgoing wires, since we have knowledge of the match, we are required to report it. They also quoted regulation stating that this reporting would not be in violation of the Right to Financial Privacy Act. So ... a reporting I will go.

Just to bring this back up to the top, I'm hunting for an answer to a quandry. If you do have electronic records of wires, what are your obligations for 314(a) searches? Also can someone point me to the interpretation that we only check our end of the transaction? Thanks for any help you can give. I understand that this question should be on the other thread, but this thread seemed the most relevant, and I don't know how to move them over (if that's possible for users).

I answered my own question with regard to checking only our end of the transaction by finding Andy's link on another thread. Only the other question is left unanswered.