The Jersey Financial Services Commission has published a consultation paper concerning proposed amendments to the ‘Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008’.
The Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008’ requires Regulated businesses to apply policies and procedures for the prevention and reporting of money laundering. These include policies and procedures for customer due diligence, record keeping, and reporting ‘suspicious activity concerning money laundering and terrorist financing.
Businesses that form the regulated sector include banks and financial institutions, money service businesses, trust and company service providers, law firms, accountants, and estate agents.
This amendment order has been made necessary in the light of some technical points that have been raised in a recent review of the Jersey framework for the prevention and detection of money laundering and terrorist financing conducted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Among the proposed amendments, the paper also considers the possibility of extending powers to the Minister for Treasury & Resources to apply countermeasures where the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issue recommendations. This may in be respect to countries or regimes that have weak or nonexistent anti-money laundering and the combating of terrorist financing legislation.
The Jersey Financial Services Commission explained on Monday that the main effects of Amendment No. 4 would be to:
- Clarify the application of customer due diligence measures to trusts and other legal arrangements;
- Clearly set out the records that a Money Laundering Compliance Officer and Money Laundering Reporting Officer must have access to in order to carry out their statutory functions;
- Require particular attention to be paid to implementing policies and procedures that are sufficient to prevent and detect money laundering and terrorist financing in subsidiaries and branches that are situated in countries and territories that do not, or insufficiently apply, the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations;
- Restate the requirement that customer information must always be collected before a relationship is established – where a customer is introduced by one business to another; and
- Amend the scope of some of the concessions that may be used when applying due diligence measures to a customer who is considered to present a low risk of money laundering or terrorist financing.
The proposed amendments have been discussed with the Commission’s Steering Group for the Prevention and Detection of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.
Visit the BTC website for compliance help and support for firms in the regulated sector
