The Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator the Hon Chris Ellison, has released a revised exposure draft AML/CTF Bill 2006 and draft AML/CTF Rules for a period of three weeks of public consultation from 13 July 2006.
The revised exposure draft AML/CTF Bill 2006 and draft AML/CTF Rules follow consideration of comments on the exposure Bill and sample Rules released on 16 December 2005 and the findings of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee inquiry into the exposure Bill.
The Minister also released a summary of changes to the exposure Bill and a summary of the draft AML/CTF Rules.
The revised Bill is less prescriptive allowing reporting entities to adopt a flexible risk based approach to compliance.
Changes include:
- allowing members of a business group to share identification information without committing a ‘tipping off’ offence and to enable members of the group to subscribe to one “joint anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing program”;
- the Bill will not initially apply to self managed superannuation funds (SMSFs)but money laundering and terrorist financing risks that may arise in relation to them will be dealt with when the SMSF opens an account with a financial institution;
- triggers for re-verification of the identity of existing and low risk service customers and their agents are now risk based and will depend on the identification of circumstances that may require filing of a suspicious matter report;
- superannuation customer identification procedures will apply when the benefit is paid out rather than upfront;
- financial planners will not have to identify customers when they provide financial advice, only when customers purchase a product;
- triggers for filing a suspicious matters report have been clarified to include suspicions held by both the reporting entity and authorised agents and have been expanded to include suspicions that a customer is not the person they claim to be;
- the record-keeping retention period has been specified to be 7 years; and
- a new general defence to criminal proceedings and civil proceedings under the Act of taking reasonable precautions and exercising due diligence.
The amended Rules require a reporting entity tot designate a person as its ‘AML Compliance Officer’.
The package of draft AML/CTF Rules have been developed by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) in consultation with industry. They set out specific requirements on
matters such as customer identification, ongoing customer due diligence, reporting of suspicious matters, and the development of AML/CTF Programs.
