The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act) and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (Transitional
Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 2006 commenced on 12 December 2006 when it received Royal Assent.

The AML/CTF Act will be implemented in stages as set out in section 2.

The AML/CTF Act applies to businesses providing designated financial services and gambling services and bullion dealers ("designated services" is defined in Part 1, section 6).

Austrac will remain the key AML/CTF regulator: it will monitor reporting entities’ obligations and be responsible for undertaking intelligence assessments for Australian government and law enforcement agencies.

The first stage of
implementation took effect on 13 December 2006. These provisions include the:

• cross border movements of physical currency and bearer negotiable instruments (Part 4)
•  electronic funds transfer instructions (Part 5)
• register of providers of designated remittance services (Part 6)
• regulations which may prohibit or regulate the entering into of transactions with residents of prescribed foreign countries (Part 9).
• record keeping requirements (Part 10 Divisions 1, 2, 4 and 7): a reporting entity must make a record of a designated service. The reporting entity must retain the record for 7 years.
• Parts 11 to 18 including offences such as the tipping off offences and other
  general offences in relation to false or misleading information or
  documents, and general administrative provisions including audit, information gathering and enforcement powers of Austrac.

Remittance services

The first AML/CTF Rules relate to reportable details of movements of bearer
negotiable instruments and movements of physical currency, and the
AML/CTF Rules regarding the registrable details in respect of the
register of providers of designated remittance services.

Next stages

The next stages of implementation will be:

• 13 June 2007—AML/CTF compliance reports (Part 3, Division 5), correspondent banking (Part 8) and records about  correspondent banking (Part 10, Division 6)
• 13 December 2007—identification procedures generally including for pre-commencement customers and certain low-risk customers (Part 2 except for Division 6 which will commence on 13 December 2008),AML/CTF programs (Part 7), records of identification procedures (Part 10, Division 3) and records of AML/CTF programs (Part 10, Division 5)   
• 13 December 2008— ongoing customer due diligence (Part 2, Division 6), reporting obligations (Part 3, Divisions 1 to 4 and 6).