Introduction Large financial scandals that come to light are in most cases associated with individuals that own a complex web of anonymous companies, partnership and trusts spread across multiple jurisdictions. As is often the case, they use professional advisors and financial institutions to structure the entities to ultimately hide the beneficial owners and the source...
On August 24, 2017 the Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) issued a Notice of Hearing and Statement of Charges to Habib Bank Limited, Pakistan’s largest bank, for a broad range of violations of New York and Federal anti-money laundering regulations. The regulator has “commanded” the bank to appear for...
Subsequent to the publication of this article, the June 14, 2017 Canada Gazette reported that the transitional period for the new identity verification requirements has been extended to January 23, 2018 Financial institutions, real estate firms and other qualifying entities should be ready to comply with the amended AML regulations, effective June 17 and 30,...
The use of anonymous shell companies and trusts to hide the connection of illicit funds to their owners is a common money laundering technique. It should come as no surprise that two Canadian women were acting as nominee directors for more than 200 companies they had little or no knowledge about, in the CBC article...
Customer not present (CNP) onboarding is rapidly becoming a staple in the client acquisition strategy of most financial institutions FINTRAC’s minimum requirements for CNP identity verification allow organizations to solve part of the digital onboarding challenge – ie, confirming that the applicant is a real person. To truly manage risk, financial institutions must extend beyond...
