28/10/14 – New guidance from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will help countries tackle the misuse of corporate entities for money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit purposes.
Criminals are often able to set up companies or trusts with opaque ownership in order to hide their identity, the purpose of the account and their sources of funds.
The FATF’s Guidance on Transparency and Beneficial Ownership explains the requirements for the provision of accurate information about the legal and beneficial owners, the source of the corporate vehicle’s assets and its activities. Effective implementation of the measures will also help tackle corruption and tax evasion.
The FATF’s new guidance assists countries in :
- Assessing the risks associated with legal persons and legal arrangements
- Making legal persons and legal arrangements sufficiently transparent, and
- Ensuring that accurate and up-to-date basic and beneficial ownership information is available to competent authorities in a timely fashion.
The FATF has also published separate guidance for countries, competent authorities, and banks to identify, assess, and understand the money laundering and terrorist financing risk to which they are exposed and to develop appropriate measures according to the level of risk. The Risk-based Approach for the Banking Sector allows banks, countries and competent authorities the flexibility to focus their resources on the areas where the risks are higher and apply simplified customer due diligence measures where the risks are lower.
For more information, journalists are invited to contact Alexandra Wijmenga-Daniel, FATF Secretariat (+33 1 45 24 95 23; [email protected]).
Further information about the guidance and the work of the FATF is available on its website.
