Almost 200 findings identified in financial crime examinations in 2020

Our financial crime examinations identified 191 findings where businesses were not meeting statutory and regulatory requirements. The examinations, which were carried out last year, reviewed arrangements to prevent and detect financial crime at 27 businesses.

These examinations were carried out for all types of relevant person. Businesses included; 86 licensed entities undertaking regulated financial services business such as deposit-taking, fund services, investment and trust company businesses and 12 other relevant persons that are supervised by us such as accountants, estate agents and the legal profession.

Our feedback paper, published today, details our findings and we encourage all businesses to review the report so they can assess their own compliance risks and the effectiveness of their systems and controls to prevent, detect and report financial crime.

Some of the key findings related to board and senior management responsibilities, reporting suspicions of money laundering, the role of the money laundering compliance officer and the money laundering reporting officer. Other findings included systems and controls (including policies and procedures) to prevent, detect and report money laundering and the financing of terrorism; and customer due diligence - ongoing monitoring and identification measures.

In a number of instances, we identified findings that were similar to those highlighted during previous examinations of the relevant person, indicating that senior management action to address those historic findings had not been fully completed or was ineffective at remedying the matter in question. There were also findings at some organisations that were similar to those highlighted in previous feedback papers issued by the JFSC.

Financial Crime Examinations: Feedback from 2020 examinations