Bank Secrecy Act

Bank Secrecy Act

The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (or BSA, or otherwise known as the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act) requires financial institutions in the United States to assist U.S. government agencies to detect and prevent money laundering. Specifically, the act requires financial institutions to keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, and file reports of cash purchases of these negotiable instruments of more than $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and to report suspicious activity that might signify money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities. Many banks will no longer sell negotiable instruments when they are purchased with cash, requiring the purchase to be withdrawn from an account at that institution.

The BSA was originally passed by the Congress of the United States in 1970, and amended several times since then, including provisions in title III of the USA PATRIOT Act. (See 31 USC 5311-5330 and 31 CFR Chapter X.) The BSA is sometimes referred to as an "anti-money laundering" law ("AML") or jointly as “BSA/AML”.

Read more about Bank Secrecy Act:  Types of Reports, Sanctions, How It Affects American Citizens, Additional Information, Notable Cases

Famous quotes containing the words bank, secrecy and/or act:

    That strain again, it had a dying fall;
    O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
    That breathes upon a bank of violets,
    Stealing and giving odor. Enough, no more,
    ‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    psychologist
    Mothers with marriageable daughters ought to look out for men of this stamp, men with brains to act as protecting divinity, with worldly wisdom to diagnose like a surgeon, and with experience to take a mother’s place in warding off evil. These are the three cardinal virtues in matrimony.
    Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)