IRIS has added an invaluable new service for accountants in
practice, an electronic Anti-Money Laundering search facility,
known as ‘AML Search’*. It is a cost effective way for accountants
to meet the stringent demands of the Money Laundering Regulations
2007.
The updated Regulations, introduced in
December 2007, have increased pressure on the profession as they
stipulate that all prospective and existing clients are risk
assessed for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes at
the start of the relationship and accountants are required to keep
the assessment under review. Due diligence measures
include:
- Verification of client
identity
- Identification of any third
parties involved in the relationship and anyone who controls more
than 25% of the client entity (10% in the Isle of Man or the
Channel Islands)
- Understanding the ownership and
corporate structure of the client company and verification of the
identity of significant owners and controllers
- Confirmation of the purpose and
intended nature of the business relationship
- Monitoring the ongoing
relationship against the expected profile
- Regard of the Notices issued in
relation to UN, UK and EU sanctions to guard against the risk of
handling terrorist funds
- Check against Politically Exposed
Persons lists
The comprehensive AML Search is designed to
simplify the ‘due diligence’ process and to enable accountants,
irrespective of the size of firm, to conduct personal and
non-personal searches on public, private, unincorporated companies,
partnerships and charities, quickly and easily. AML Search
interrogates a wide range of ‘best of breed’ data sources and
provides a risk profile analysis, giving an instant positive or
negative result for each anti-money laundering search,
ensuring the practice can demonstrate Regulatory compliance.
J F Hornby & Co was the first practice to use the
service.
“We are really impressed with the new AML Search facility. It
is very responsive and produces all of the information it says it
will provide. During the last few weeks, we have taken on a number
of new clients and have now conducted searches on them all. It has
already become part of our system and moving forward, we will be
using it to conduct regular searches on existing clients to
comply with Regulations. A very helpful tool.”
Crucially, no specialist Anti-Money Laundering
or system training is required to operate AML Search. The service
is charged for on an individual transaction basis so there are no
upfront costs.
Click here to register
for the AML Search service
*AML Search is a product of Searches Group
