Banks can discuss suspicious transactions with customers and discuss the potential that their accounts might be closed, as long as they don’t disclose the filing or planned filing of a suspicious activity report, federal regulators said Wednesday.
The Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., National Credit Union Administration and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network released a joint statement to clarify how financial institutions can “ensure compliance with SAR confidentiality requirements and provide customers with transparent and timely communication as part of the bank’s fraud investigation.”
Bank personnel expressed concerns about their abilities to communicate with customers in these situations in response to a request for information issued by regulators in June 2025.
The Bank Secrecy Act prohibits disclosing a SAR or information that would reveal the existence of a SAR, and this does not change the law itself, regulators said.
But SAR confidentiality does not “prohibit banks and credit unions from communicating with a customer or other person who may be the subject of a SAR or with third parties, including other banks or credit unions, when such communication involves the underlying facts, transactions, and documents upon which a SAR is based,” the regulators said.
Banks and credit unions can inform customers about account restrictions or closures, and can tell them when a deposit has been rejected because of suspected fraud. They can also request customer due diligence-related information to understand customer relationships, and can ask a customer about the purpose of a transaction or the source of funds, according to the joint statement.
