Financial Action Task Force report (‘FATF’)

FATF has released a report on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Securities Sector. The document is based upon a mixture of questionnaire results and workshops/consultations.

Comment is made that suspicious transaction reports (‘STR’) in the securities industry are relatively low, although the theories on why this may be so range from a lack of understanding of STR requirements to the more prosaic inconsistency in the definition of ‘security’.

Appendix B, in the document linked below, lists a series of ‘suspicious indicators’ which firms may find useful for training purposes although it may seem fairly common sense, for instance, a customer refusing to provide adequate information or being ‘unusually concerned’ about a firm’s AML/CFT policies.

There are also various real life case studies scattered throughout the document e.g. case study 14 on the failure to identify beneficial owners of offshore trust accounts.