More staff to enforce AML/CFT
Supplied Content
Wellington, December 20, 2017
The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has published the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Phase 2 Lawyers and Conveyancers Guideline to help the sector better understand the Act and how it affects them.
Phase 2 reporting entities include lawyers, accountants, conveyancers, real estate agents, high value dealers and the New Zealand Racing Board.
First Specific Guidance
The Lawyers and Conveyancers Guideline is the first of the industry-specific guidance material to be published with guidelines for accountants and Real Estate Agents to be published in 2018 ahead of the legislation going live for these two professions. The Lawyers and Conveyancers guideline can be accessed here.
Generic documents
Along with the Phase 2 guidance a number of generic guidance documents have also been updated and some new documents introduced, which DIA signalled in ITS earlier newsletter. The updates can be found on the DIA website AML/CFT page under the ‘Codes of Practice and Guidelines’ menu heading.
The updates focus on what constitutes ‘in the ordinary course of business’ and the scope and formation of ‘designated business groups.’
There is new guidance to assist reporting entities to conduct enhanced customer due diligence.
Prompts and Notes
DIA has also produced a Phase 2 Sector Risk Assessment along with a companion document, ‘Prompts and Notes’ to help reporting entities to develop their risk assessments and compliance programmes. These two documents will be published before Christmas and can be found here.
New Staff
We will be taking on new staff in the New Year as we look to expand the AML/CFT Team to manage the growing number of reporting entities.
While it has been a busy year for all us, it is pleasing to reflect on another year where compliance standards have advanced and overall AML/CFT capability has progressed.
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