Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5MLD)
HM Treasury has revised previous Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations to take account of the changes required by the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5MLD). The new legislation is effective from 10 January 2020.
Many of the changes under 5MLD will not affect you or how your company operates, however; be aware that the changes bring additional entities into scope. For example; if you are in the fine arts business, read how the how the new-anti-money-laundering-regulations-target-art-market could affect you.
Letting agents and firms providing both direct and indirect tax advice are now captured by the rules.
The Financial Conduct Authority suggests that, when assessing the need for enhanced due diligence, firms seek additional information and monitoring in certain cases.
For example:
- If there are relevant transactions between parties based in high-risk third countries
- the customer is the beneficiary of a life insurance policy
- the customer is a third-country national seeking residence rights or citizenship in exchange for transfers of capital, purchase of a property, governments bonds or investment in corporate entities
- non-face to face business relationships or transactions without certain safeguards, for example, as set out in regulation 28 (19) concerning electronic identification processes.
- transactions related to oil, arms, precious metals, tobacco products, cultural artefacts, ivory or other items related to protected species, or archaeological, historical, cultural and religious significance, or of rare scientific value