Banks' failure to submit CTR may entail stiff penalties

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Rezaul Karim
The failure on the part of any scheduled commercial bank to submit its information with regular CTR (cash transaction report) statements may entail stiff penalties for it.
Some banks are not complying with the BB's guidelines properly regarding the customer's financial transactions and they are now going to face stiff punishment as per rules, the officials of the concerned department of Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE.
The BB may impose fine of a minimum amount of Tk 0.02 million, a maximum of Tk 0.5 million, under the clause 23 (4) of Anti-Money Laundering Act 2012, if any bank avoid or fails to submit actual information or data on the CTR.
The BB may also cancel the banking licence of the respective banks if they fail to submit actual CTR for three consecutive times.
Under the same rules, if any bank fails to submit its CTR within the stipulated time, it will have to pay penalty of a minimum amount of Tk 0.05 million and a maximum of Tk 0.5 million for each day.
Or if any bank faces penalty for more than three times in a fiscal year, BB can take necessary action or cancel its licence, according to the Money Anti-Laundering Act.
In a recent circular, BB directed the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of banks to submit their CTR statements in time, in accordance with the provisions of the Act.
The negligence of some banks in submitting CTR is unacceptable, the BB sources said.
BB has raised the ceiling of the amount for the commercial banks' CTR, the monthly submission of which to the central bank is mandatory.
Now the ceiling stands at Tk 1.0 million, instead of earlier Tk 0.7 million. The new ceiling was made effective from this month (August).
Under the directive, all commercial banks have to report to the BB if an amount of Tk 1.0 million and above is deposited or withdrawn from a particular account.
The daily cash transaction reports for the month of August will have to be submitted to the BB within September 21, which means the CTR of a month must be submitted within the three weeks of the following month.
The ceiling has been increased on demand raised by the businessmen and bankers as well. Following such a rise in the ceiling, bank officials' work-load will be reduced to almost half, the sources said.