The Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) has directed the Reporting Entities (REs), including financial institutions and real estate agents, jewelers, lawyers/accountants, trusts, and company service providers, to report cash transactions of Rs. 2 million or above through the “Currency Transaction Reports.”

The FMU has issued guidelines on the filing of Currency Transaction Reports for the Reporting Entities, including Designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) covering real estate agents, including builders and real estate developers.

The FMU clarified that the Currency Transaction Report or CTR means to report on cash transactions exceeding such amount as may be specified by the National Executive Committee by notification in the Official Gazette. The threshold for reporting currency transaction report is Rs 2 million or above. It is mandatory for the reporting entities to report only those cash transactions as CTR meeting the notified threshold.

According to the FMU, in terms of Section 7 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010, the Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU) prescribes the manners for filing of Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) and Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) for the reporting entities. In this context, FMU has successfully implemented an automated reporting system, i.e., goAML, and all the reporting entities have been reporting CTRs electronically through the goAML application since January 01, 2020.

To streamline the process of reporting and improve the quality of CTR reporting on goAML, detailed guidelines are being issued to the reporting entities. The compliance of these guidelines must be ensured by all the reporting entities, FMU stated.

To develop a quality financial intelligence report, complete, accurate, and updated information must be provided in the Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) filed by Reporting Entities (REs). The objective of these guidelines is to improve the quality of the CTRs being submitted to FMU by guiding the REs related to reporting of CTRs. These guidelines are being issued under Section 7 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010, applicable to the Reporting Entities (REs), which includes financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs).

To facilitate CTRs reporting, CTRs have been categorized into two types:

• Currency Transaction Report – CTR (To be reported by all Financial Institutions and DNFBPs involving a cash transaction of Rs. 2 million or above)

• Currency Transaction Report-Aggregate – CTR-A (To be reported by Exchange Companies only for transactions involving multiple currencies aggregating Rs. 2 million or above).

Only those cash transactions are required to be filed as CTR, which meets the threshold of Rs. 2 million and above. The reporting entities shall not report the account-to-account transactions, account to entity transactions, and entity-to-account transactions as CTR in goAML, FMU directive said.

While reporting an account having multiple signatories in a cash transaction, it is mandatory to provide the details of all signatories along with their necessary information, FMU added.

Source: Pro Pakistani