FinCEN Releases SAR Activity Review
On Monday, FinCEN announced the release of the ninth issue of its SAR Activity Review - By the Numbers. You can read about it here.
According to FinCEN:
Structuring/Money Laundering continues to be the predominant characterization of SARs filed by depository institutions, at 48%. However, Check Fraud (10.5%), Counterfeit Check (4.9%), Credit Card Fraud (4.8%), Mortgage Loan Fraud (3.9%), Check Kiting (3.3%), Identity Theft (2.4%) and other types of fraud are consistently represented. By The Numbers further categorizes this data by state and by year so that users can compare numbers which are relevant to their areas of interest.
If you are interested in SAR-filing data, this is the document for you. For example, credit unions (for whom NCUA is the primary regulator) filed 26,112 SARs during the first half of 2007. That trend, if it continues, would make 2007 the newest high-point for SAR filings.  The document also breaks down SAR filing trends by state so you can see how you are filing when compared to your neighbors.