The vital shift to remote working combined with an employer’s understandable desire to maintain productivity in a time of economic uncertainty risks AML compliance becoming a distant consideration.
Dimension GRC is anchored by a purpose-driven team of industry experts who deeply understands its audience. We are offering free advice and support to New Zealand reporting entities to ensure all have peace of mind they are managing their compliance obligations during this time.
We have addressed the ways in which your customer facing employees can manage the onboarding of new customers, the ongoing due diligence of current customers and the all important monitoring of transactions for suspicious activity.
New Zealand and global banks are seeing a significant increase in financial activity outside the norm; Interpol, the DIA and the FMA are advising there is an increase in customers exploiting the softening of compliance over Covid-19 lock down and the need for extra vigilance over this time.
The vital shift to remote working, combined with an employer’s understandable desire tom maintain productivity in a time of economic uncertainty, risks AML compliance becoming
a distant consideration.
Cautious businesses should be reinforcing to their customer facing employees, that although the office is empty with working remotely, customer risk assessment and
customer due diligence (CDD), extending to verification of individual and corporate clients, including beneficial owners must still be performed, before any work commences.
An exception only arises if the prospective client is assessed as posing a low risk of money laundering or terrorist financing and it is considered ‘necessary’ to delay verification to
avoid interruption to business. If this exception is to be relied upon, the reasons must be documented. It is vital at this time that businesses of all sizes review their AML policies to ensure they are
equipped to deal with all AML, client on-boarding and CDD issues remotely, with additional resource in place to support employees at the senior management level.