Anti-money laundering
Few areas of law will have such a significant impact on the financial services sector as the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF) Act.
The AML/CFT Act was the first stage of reforms intended to ensure Australian compliance with accepted international standards, and reflects a risk-based approach to the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing measures.
Impact
Those affected by the legislation have a range of obligations including:
- undertaking a money laundering and terrorism financing risk assessment
- developing and implementing formal and comprehensive AML/CTF compliance programs
- developing and implementing systems to identify customers and third party service providers to monitor for and report suspicious transactions and to collect and retain records
- developing standard customer and third party outsourcing documentation which complies with the AML/CTF and other legislation
- appointing an AML/CTF management level compliance officer.
Industry specific analysis
The AML/CTF Act lists 74 activities that will be regarded as "designated services" and therefore covered by the legislation. Our team has prepared a number of Legal Updates addressing the impact of changes made in the AML/CTF Act generally and also in relation to the specific industry groups which will be most affected by the reforms