The services offered by accountants and bookkeepers are vulnerable to money laundering activities due to their link to financial transactions, such as money transfers and trust account deposits, as well as the establishment of legal entities to hold assets.
Some services provided by accountants and bookkeepers may be attractive to criminals seeking to avoid detection and may raise red flags when accessing the financial system.
The services offered by accountants and bookkeepers may also have become more attractive to criminals over the past few years as the financial sector has implemented comprehensive AML/CTF measures.
The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (ML/TF) risks associated with the accountancy profession include:
Accountants must ensure their organisation conducts a comprehensive ML/TF risk assessment to identify, assess, mitigate and manage ML/TF risk exposures. This is a critical first step in complying with the AML/CTF Act and Rules.
These are the services offered by accountants and bookkeepers that may be included as designated services under the AML/CTF Act.
If you offer or provide one or more of the above services, your business will be subject to AML/CTF obligations.
The AML/CTF regime is risk based, which means that your responses to the AML/CTF obligations placed upon you should be risk-based.
A risk-based AML/CTF regime requires that you understand and address the Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (ML/TF) risks associated with the services you offer.
You must then design, implement and maintain systems, procedures and controls that appropriately manage and mitigate your ML/TF risks.
Initialism are the AML/CTF experts, so you don’t have to be.
With over 50 years of expert knowledge and real world experience, our AML/CTF compliance solutions will help you to navigate your legal and regulatory requirements so that your business complies with its AML/CTF obligations in the fastest and most cost-effective way.
Initialism has a range of AML/CTF Program solutions to support your business in becoming AML/CFT compliant and maintaining compliance.
Our expertise covers all AML/CTF disciplines and brings unique perspectives, approaches and solutions to the AML/CTF challenges faced by the accountancy profession
Our AML/CTF compliance knowledge includes working with accountancy firms and we understand what compliance means for your business
We have experience in delivering workable AML/CTF compliance to the accountancy profession
Our knowledge and expertise has been hard earned and comes from working in the area of AML/CTF for many decades
We have experience providing tried and tested AML/CTF solutions, regardless of the size and complexity of your accountancy practice
Our AML/CTF compliance solutions are flexible and can be tailored to your capacity, experience and budget