DIA issued a formal warning against a Real Estate Agency who operates more than 80 branches throughout New Zealand, employing 700 staff. The agency failed to meet several of their AML/CFT obligations – the article can be found here.
If you have not already organised the first AML/CFT Audit for your firm, I encourage you to get hold of me at your earliest convenience.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (the Act) applied to real estate agents from 1 January 2019. At that date (or the date when your agency began operating if after 1 January 2019) you had several obligations with the most important being:
1) Implemented a “Risk Assessment” document (S58 of the Act);
2) Implemented an “AML/CFT Programme” (aka Compliance Programme) which is based on the Risk Assessment (Ss 56 & 57 of the Act);
3) Appointed an AML/CFT Compliance Officer (S56(2) of the Act).
There are several additional obligations with the above mentioned being the most important, as a start.
Other issues are around lack of relevant AML/CFT training of staff, insufficient record keeping, not vetting staff to the acceptable level etc. Customer Due Diligence (CDD) is also a very important part of the AML/CFT process and it is risk based. I have found several failings around CDD not being conducted to the acceptable level, or not conducting CDD at all, and failure to ascertain whether a client is a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) or directly related to one.
