Guideline 3B: Submitting Suspicious Transaction Reports to FINTRAC by Paper

April 2006

This replaces the previous version of Guideline 3B : Submitting Suspicious Transaction Reports to FINTRAC by Paper issued in May 2003. The changes made to this version are indicated by a side bar to the right of the modified text in the PDF version.

Table Of Contents

1. General
2. Suspicious Transaction Reporting Requirements

   2.1  Suspicious Transaction Reporting Timelines

   2.2  Other Reports

   2.3  Means of Reporting

   2.4  Information to be Contained in a Suspicious Transaction Report

3. Paper Reporting

   3.1  How to Complete Paper Reports

   3.2  How to Send Paper Reports to FINTRAC

   3.3  Acknowledgement of Receipt of a Paper Report

4. Instructions for Completing a Suspicious Transaction Report
   • Part A: Information about where the transaction took place
   • Part B1: Information about how the transaction was initiated
   • Part B2: Information about how the transaction was completed
   • Part C: Account information, if the transaction involved an account
   • Part D: Information about the individual conducting the transaction
   • Part E: Information about the entity on whose behalf the transaction was conducted (if applicable)
   • Part F: Information about the individual on whose behalf the transaction was conducted (if applicable)
   • Part G: Description of Suspicious Activity
   • Part H: Action Taken (if applicable)
5. Comments?
6. How to Contact FINTRAC

Back to the guidelines menu

1  General

The following have to report suspicious and certain other transactions to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC):

• financial entities (such as banks or authorized foreign banks with respect to their operations in Canada, credit unions, caisses populaires, trust and loan companies and agents of the Crown that accept deposit liabilities);
• life insurance companies, brokers and independent agents;
• securities dealers, portfolio managers and investment counsellors;
• foreign exchange dealers and money services businesses (for guidance on who is engaged in the business of money services or foreign exchange dealing, refer to the FINTRAC Interpretation Notice on this topic available from the Publications area of FINTRAC's Web site);
• agents of the Crown that sell or redeem money orders;
• accountants and accounting firms, when carrying out certain activities on behalf of their clients or when receiving professional fees to engage in any of those activities.
• real estate brokers or sales representatives, when carrying out certain activities on behalf of their clients; and
• casinos (for a description of a casino in this context, see Guideline 6F: Record Keeping and Client Identification for Casinos).

If you are one of these "reporting entities", this guideline has been prepared by FINTRAC to help you submit suspicious transaction reports by paper. It explains reporting timelines, how reports have to be sent to FINTRAC, and what information has to be included in these reports.

For the purposes of suspicious transactions, an employee of any of the reporting entities described above is also a "reporting entity". If you are an employee and you have to submit a suspicious transaction report on your own behalf (that is, not on behalf of your employer), this guideline will explain how to submit the report.

This guideline uses plain language to explain the most common reporting situations under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act as well as the related Regulations. It is provided as general information only. It is not legal advice, and is not intended to replace the Act and Regulations. For more information about money laundering, terrorist financing or other requirements under the Act and Regulations, see the guidelines in this series:

• Guideline 1: Backgrounder explains money laundering and terrorist financing and their international nature. It also provides an outline of the legislative requirements as well as an overview of FINTRAC's mandate and responsibilities.
• Guideline 2: Suspicious Transactions explains how to report a suspicious transaction. It also provides guidance on how to identify a suspicious transaction, including general and industry-specific indicators that may help when conducting or evaluating transactions.
• Guideline 3: Submitting Suspicious Transaction Reports to FINTRAC explains when and how to submit suspicious transaction reports. There are two different versions of Guideline 3, by reporting method.
• Guideline 4: Implementation of a Compliance Regime explains the requirement for reporting persons and entities to implement a regime to ensure compliance with their obligations under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and associated Regulations.
• Guideline 5: Submitting Terrorist Property Reports to FINTRAC explains to reporting persons and entities when and how to submit a terrorist property report.
• Guideline 6: Record Keeping and Client Identification explains the requirement for reporting persons and entities to identify their clients and keep records. There are eight different versions of Guideline 6, by sector of activity.
• Guideline 7: Submitting Large Cash Transaction Reports to FINTRAC explains when and how to submit large cash transaction reports. There are two different versions of Guideline 7, by reporting method.
• Guideline 8: Submitting Electronic Funds Transfer Reports to FINTRAC explains when and how to submit EFT reports. There are three different versions of Guideline 8, by report type and reporting method.
• Guideline 9: Submitting Alternative to Large Cash Transaction Reports to FINTRAC explains when and how financial entities can choose the alternative to large cash transaction reports. This is only applicable to financial entities.

If you need more help after you read this or other guidelines, call FINTRAC's national toll-free enquiries line at 1-866-346-8722.

Throughout these guidelines, several references are provided to additional information that may be available on external Web sites. FINTRAC is not responsible for the accuracy or reliability of the information contained on those external Web sites. The links provided are based on information available at the time of publishing of this guideline.

Throughout this guideline, any references to dollar amounts (such as $10,000) refer to the amount in Canadian dollars or its equivalent in foreign currency. Also throughout this guideline, the term "reporting entity" is used to refer to any person or entity required to report to FINTRAC.

Back

2  Suspicious Transaction Reporting Requirements

2.1  Suspicious Transaction Reporting Timelines

If you are a reporting entity as described in Section 1, you have to send a suspicious transaction report to FINTRAC when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a transaction is related to the commission of a money laundering offence or a terrorist financing offence.

There is no minimum threshold amount for reporting a suspicious transaction. Guideline 2: Suspicious Transactions has more information on how to identify a suspicious transaction.

You have to submit suspicious transaction reports to FINTRAC, containing specific information (see Section 4). Once you have determined that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the transaction is related to the commission of a money laundering or terrorist financing offence, your report, including all required and applicable information, must be sent within 30 calendar days.

This 30-day reporting time limit begins when you or any one of your employees first detects a fact about a transaction that constitutes reasonable grounds to suspect that it is related to the commission of a money laundering or terrorist financing offence. If such a fact is detected at the time of the transaction, the reporting timeline begins at the time of the transaction. However, if the fact is not detected at the time of the transaction, the 30-day time limit could begin at some time after. For example, if the fact were detected during a review by corporate security after the transaction took place, the 30-day time limit would begin when corporate security first detected the fact.

Back

2.2  Other Reports

Information about other reporting requirements under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act that apply to reporting persons or entities can be found in the following guidelines:

• Guideline 5: Submitting Terrorist Property Reports to FINTRAC
• Guideline 7: Submitting Large Cash Transaction Reports to FINTRAC
• Guideline 8: Submitting Electronic Funds Transfer Reports to FINTRAC

Back

2.3  Means of Reporting

Electronic Reporting

As a reporting entity, you have to submit all reports on suspicious transactions to FINTRAC electronically if you have the technical capabilities to do so. The minimum technical capabilities are as follows:

• A personal computer with the following characteristics:
  • 32 MB memory
  • 640 x 480 VGA video display (800 x 600 or higher is preferable)
  • any operating system running a Web browser, such as Internet Explorer (version 5.x or greater) or its equivalent; and
• An Internet connection

See Guideline 3A: Submitting Suspicious Transaction Reports to FINTRAC Electronically for more information on submitting reports to FINTRAC electronically.

Exception for Employees and Suspicious Transaction Reports

If you are an employee of a reporting entity, you are a "reporting entity" yourself, for the purposes of suspicious transactions only. This requires you to make a report to FINTRAC about a suspicious transaction unless you reported it to your superior. In this situation, if you need to make a report about a suspicious transaction that you did not report to your superior, you are considered not to have the technical capabilities to report electronically. This means you must submit this type of report by paper, as explained below.

This exception does not apply if you are submitting a suspicious transaction report on behalf of your employer or anyone else that is a reporting entity.

Paper Reporting

If you do not have the technical capabilities to send reports electronically, you must submit reports on paper. See Section 3 for more information on submitting suspicious transaction reports to FINTRAC by paper.

Back

2.4  Information to be Contained in a Suspicious Transaction Report

Your suspicion about there being a relation to a money laundering or a terrorist financing offence may be as a result of more than one transaction. In this case, include all the transactions that contributed to your suspicion in the same report.

By completing all applicable fields in your reports, you make an important contribution to FINTRAC's ability to isolate activity pointing to possible money laundering or terrorist activity financing. In the case of a suspicious transaction report, your detailed explanation of what led to the suspicion is also extremely important to FINTRAC's analysis.

See Section 4 for more information about what has to be included in a suspicious transaction report.

Back

3  Paper Reporting

3.1  How to Complete Paper Reports

If you do not have the technical capability (see Section 2.3), you have to submit paper reports to FINTRAC. In this case, forms are available for paper filing as follows:

• A file is accessible from the reporting forms area of the publications section of FINTRAC's Web site ( http://www.fintrac.gc.ca) to be printed at your local library or any other place with Internet access.
• Call 1-866-346-8722 for a copy to be faxed or mailed to you.

To ensure that the information provided is legible and to facilitate data entry, it would be preferable if the free-text areas of the paper reports (e.g., Part G) were completed using word-processing equipment or a typewriter. For reports completed by hand, the use of black ink and CAPITAL LETTERS is recommended.

See Section 4 for completion instructions. It includes details of what each field must contain for a suspicious transaction report and indicates which parts of the form you may need to make copies of before you complete your report.

Back

3.2  How to Send Paper Reports to FINTRAC

There are two ways to send a paper report to FINTRAC:

• Fax: 1-866-226-2346; or

• Mail to the following address:
  Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
  Section A
  234 Laurier Avenue West, 24th floor
  Ottawa, ON
  Canada K1P 1H7

Back

3.3  Acknowledgement of Receipt of a Paper Report

FINTRAC will not send you any acknowledgement when your paper report has been received.

Back

4  Instructions for Completing a Suspicious Transaction Report

5  Comments?

These guidelines will be reviewed on a periodic basis. If you have any comments or suggestions to help improve them, please send your comments to the mailing address provided below, or by email to guidelines@fintrac.gc.ca.

Back

6  How to Contact FINTRAC

For further information on FINTRAC and its activities, and report submission, please go to FINTRAC's Web site or contact FINTRAC:

Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
234 Laurier Avenue West, 24th floor
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1P 1H7

Toll-free: 1-866-346-8722

Back