(c) The OECD’s Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) recommends preventative measures to betaken by independent legal professionals and accountants (including sole practitioners, partners and employedprofessionals within professional firm

题目

(c) The OECD’s Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) recommends preventative measures to be

taken by independent legal professionals and accountants (including sole practitioners, partners and employed

professionals within professional firms).

Required:

Describe FOUR measures that assist in preventing professional accountants from being used for money

laundering purposes. (8 marks)

参考答案和解析
正确答案:
(c) Measures
The following measures are designed to assist in preventing professional accountants from being used for money laundering
purposes:
■ developing programmes against money laundering and terrorist financing;
■ compliance officer;
■ employee training programme;
■ customer due diligence (CDD);
■ establishing/enhancing record keeping systems for:
– all transactions; and
– the verification of clients’ identities;
■ reporting of suspicious transactions;
■ refusing to have relationships with ‘shell banks’.
Tutorial note: Only FOUR are required.
Developing programmes
■ Internal policies, procedures and controls should be established and recorded including:
– compliance management arrangements (including appointment of a compliance officer);
– an ongoing employee training programme;
– an audit function to test the system.
Compliance officer
■ Appointing a compliance officer having a suitable level of seniority and experience (e.g. one of the principals of an
accountancy firm).
■ Making alternative arrangements (e.g. appointing a deputy) when the compliance officer is going to be unavailable for
a period of time (as reports have to be made as soon as is reasonably practicable).
■ The compliance officer being made responsible for:
– receiving and assessing money laundering reports from colleagues;
– making reports to the FIU; and
– ensuring that individuals are adequately trained.
Employee training programme
■ Providing an employee training programme on:
– relevant legislation (e.g. the main money laundering offences);
– ethical guidance (e.g. ACCA’s ‘Guidance for Accountants’); and
– the firm’s procedures to forestall and prevent money laundering.
■ Establishing a culture of complying with money laundering requirements.
■ Documenting the provision of training (to demonstrate compliance).
■ Training methods may effectively include:
– attending conferences, seminars and training courses run by external organizations; and
– participating in computer based training courses.
Customer due diligence (CDD)
■ Firms should not keep anonymous accounts or accounts in obviously fictitious names.
■ Firms should verify the identity of their customers, when:
– establishing business relations;
– carrying out occasional transactions (e.g. above a designated threshold);
– there is a suspicion of money laundering or terrorist financing; or
– there is doubt about the reliability or adequacy of previously obtained customer identification data.
CDD measures should include:
■ Identifying the customer and verifying that customer’s identity using reliable, independent source documents, data or
information.
Tutorial note: Similarly identify and verify the beneficial owner.
■ Obtaining information on the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship.
■ Conducting ongoing due diligence on business relationships by scrutinising transactions to ensure that they are
consistent with the firm’s knowledge of:
– the customer;
– their business and risk profile;
– the source of funds.
Tutorial note: These requirements should apply to all new customers and existing customers on the basis of materiality and
risk.
Record keeping
■ Maintaining all client identification records together with a record of all transactions, in a full audit trail form.
■ Maintaining records of transactions (both domestic or international) in a readily retrievable form. for a period of at least
five years (to facilitate swift compliance with information requests from the competent authorities).
Tutorial note: Such records must be sufficient to permit reconstruction of individual transactions (including the
amounts and types of currency involved, if any) so as to provide, if necessary, evidence for prosecution of criminal
activity.
■ Retaining client verification records throughout the period of the relationship and for five years after termination of the
relationship.
■ Making available identification data and transaction records to domestic competent authorities upon appropriate
authority.
■ Applying ACCA’s Rules of Professional Conduct ‘Retention of books, files, working papers and other documents’.
■ Paying special attention to all complex, unusual large transactions, and all unusual patterns of transactions, which have
no apparent economic or visible lawful purpose (in accordance with ISA 240 ‘The Auditor’s Responsibility to Consider
Fraud in an Audit of Financial Statements ’).
Client identification
■ For an individual – inspecting official documents, with a photograph, establishing the client’s full name and permanent
address, e.g:
– a driving licence or passport, supported by;
– a recent utility bill.
■ For the entity – obtaining from the Registrar of Companies:
– certificate of incorporation;
– company’s registered address; and
– a list of shareholders and directors.
■ Checking the names of new clients against lists of known terrorists and other sanctions information.
■ For trusts – ascertaining:
– the nature and purpose of the trust;
– the original source of funding; and
– the identities of the trustees/controllers, principal settlers and beneficiaries.
Suspicion reporting
■ Prompt reporting of suspicions to the (FIU) in a suspicious transaction report (STR).
■ There should be no ‘de minimis’ concessions. Reporting should be irrespective of:
– the amount involved; or
– whether tax matters are involved.
Tutorial note: Attempted transactions should also be reported.
■ Enhancing confidentiality of the source of reports by:
– disclosing the compliance officer only once; and
– not naming the personnel making reports to the compliance officer.
■ Disclosing further information only if:
– legally required to do so; or
– otherwise justified, in the public interest.
Shell banks
Tutorial note: A ‘shell bank’ is a bank incorporated in a jurisdiction in which it has no physical presence and which is
unaffiliated with a regulated financial group.
■ Firms should guard against relationships with parties that permit their accounts to be used by shell banks.
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