SAR Simplified: How FinCEN’s New FAQs Could Shift AML
Oct 29, 2025
On October 9, 2025, FinCEN published four additional frequently asked questions (FAQs) and answers regarding suspicious activity reporting requirements for financial institutions that file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). The FAQs can be found here.
The FAQs add to previously published FAQs, which can be found here:
The new FAQs appear to be part of a larger government effort to streamline BSA/AML processes to reduce the regulatory burden on financial institutions.
Clarification?
Per FinCEN, the four new FAQs were intended to clarify regulatory requirements related to SARs to assist financial institutions with their compliance obligations while enabling institutions to focus resources on activities that produce the greatest value to law enforcement agencies and other authorized government users of Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reporting. In other words, to focus resources on making the AML Program more effective.
Regulatory agencies have a long history of providing clarification through FAQs and commentary; however, neither FAQs nor commentary alter or replace legal or regulatory requirements, nor do they establish new supervisory expectations. FinCEN’s recent FAQs are no exception.
If FAQs don’t establish new supervisory expectations, then it’s reasonable to ask how AML Officers should utilize the new FAQs and how the new FAQs impact an institution’s policies, procedures, and/or training content.
At Noggin Guru, we would respond with “good question!” as we take a balanced approach to FAQs such as these. We’ve heard from many AML Officers who have conveyed a wait-and-see approach, noting that they aren’t changing anything in their AML Programs until they have received feedback from regulators in the form of supervisory expectations. That’s fair, but we wanted to add our own perspective to two of the four questions in the FAQs where the answer seems to open the door to AML Program modifications.
Analysis and Outcome
Out of the four FAQs shown below, the answers to Questions #1 and #4 seem more straightforward than those for Questions #2 and #3.
Question #1: SAR Filings for Potential Structuring-related Activity
Question #2: Continuing Activity Reviews
Question #3: Continuing Activity Reviews – Timeline
Question #4: Documentation for No-SAR Filing Decisions
With respect to Questions #1 and #4, there could be room for streamlining one’s AML Program in terms of reducing the filing of structuring SARs and documenting the decision not to file a SAR.
Question #1: FinCEN’s answer to Question #1 appears to be reminding AML Officers that financial institutions are only required to file a SAR if the institution knows, suspects, or has reason to suspect that the transaction or series of transactions is designed to evade CTR reporting requirements. Absent this knowledge, suspicion, or reason to suspect, financial institutions are not required to file a SAR. The result of this guidance could be a reduction in defensively filed structuring SARs, meaning those that are filed mostly to avoid an exam or audit finding.) This will benefit retail institutions that bank cash-intensive businesses (restaurants, cash stations, convenience stores, other retail) the most.
Question #4: FinCEN’s answer to Question #4 appears to be more than a reminder. The answer appears to be suggesting something new to AML Officers, that the documentation of a No-SAR Filing decision is optional. While we haven’t heard from any AML Officer that they’ll discontinue the documentation of No-SAR Filing decisions, there could be room for streamlining that documentation, since a well-designed and well-written case investigation narrative should include most of the support for the decision.
Fewer structuring SARs and less documentation of No-SAR Filing decisions would reduce the regulatory burden of SAR filing on financial institutions.
More Reductions?
Shortly after FinCEN published the four additional FAQs, a group of senators proposed the AML Streamline Act, which would further reduce the BSA/AML regulatory burden on financial institutions by raising the filing thresholds for Current Transaction Reports (CTRs) and SARs, which have not been adjusted since the inception of the Bank Secrecy Act. The AML Streamline Act can be found here.
Should this Act become final with the proposed new reporting thresholds, or any increased thresholds, the outcome will be fewer CTRs and SARs reported by financial institutions.
That, combined with the outcome from the FinCEN FAQs, could have a profound impact on BSA/AML department reporting functions, and thus on staffing.
Noggin Guru is committed to following BSA/AML regulatory developments and adjusting our training sessions to meet regulatory requirements.
For more information on how BSA/AML Officers at banks and credit unions are responding to the FinCEN FAQs, register for our “Hot Topics in Financial Crimes Compliance” panel discussion on November 13, 2025, at 12:00 eastern.