Businesses and sole traders with obligations under the Money Laundering Regulations (MLR) are required to be regulated by a supervisory authority. These include bodies such as the FCA, HMRC, The Gambling Commission and certain professional bodies. Businesses operating as an accountancy service provider are overseen by the HMRC and in additon to the MLR obligations, have specific requirements they must comply with.
Where a business has obligations under the Money Laundering Regulations (MLR), they must use a risk-based approach to identify, assess and prevent money laundering. Carrying out an AML Risk Assessment involves several steps, which can include (but are not limited to): –
– Identifying the money laundering risks relevant to your business.
– Completing a company-wide risk assessment which includes areas such as delivery channels, transactions, products/services, customer behaviour etc.
– Assessing the risks associated with your customers.
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PECR Breaches Throughout 2021/22, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued over £1,700,000 in fines for breaches of the direct marketing laws. This included extensive PECR breach fines for ‘We Buy Any Car’. The ICO has powers under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) which enables them to take action to change the behaviour […]
What is a Responsibilities Map? There are numerous mandatory requirements in the FCA’s Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SMCR). Whilst the FCA provide a free template for completing the Statement of Responsibility (SoR), enhanced firms also need a Management Responsibilities Map to support the individual Statements of Responsibility (SoR). The Responsibilities Map template should consist […]
Any policy within a business should start by defining what the included content covers. The introduction does not need to be extensive. However, it should give anyone referring to the policy sufficient information to understand what the policy relates to.
Money laundering is the term used to describe the process or act of disguising or hiding the original ownership of money that has been obtained through criminal acts such as terrorism, corruption or fraud. Such monies are then moved through legitimate businesses or sources to make it appear ‘clean’.
Most firms will have an Outsourcing Policy Template that is used to document their objectives and procedures for outsourced services and functions. The term ‘outsourcing’ refers to any business function or service that is provided by, or contracted out to an external provider or supplier.
Common examples of functions that are outsourced or are provided by an external supplier include postal and mailing services; shredding and confidential waste disposal; IT services and disaster recovery; debt collection and translations.
The fair treatment of consumers and vulnerable customer awareness has always been one of the FCA’s key priorities, but with the publication of guidance paper FG21/1 in February 2021, the regulator has set out numerous objectives, obligations and expectations that all regulated firms are required to understand and meet.
Vulnerable customer awareness goes hand in hand in Treating Customers Fairly (TCF), which is one of the FCA’s principles for business. Ensuring good outcomes and that all interactions and communications are fair, consistent and compliant are mandatory requirements.
The Know Your Compliance Limited FCA Compliance Manual Template is the most comprehensive FCA template package on the market. With over 5500 organisations using our policy templates and packages, we are the market leader for FCA compliance solutions.
Our bespoke FCA Compliance Manual comes with a 300+ page main manual, as well as over 100 policy and procedure templates. Firms who must comply with the FCA regulations can hit the ground running with this extensive package. All parts of the manual and supporting policies are fully customisable and provided in a Word format.
The CASS Sourcebook is part of the FCA Handbook and applies to all firms who hold or control client money and safe custody assets (client assets). The guidance, rules and requirements set out in CASS have been created to ensure that adequate protections and controls are in place to safeguard client assets should a firm fail or exit the market.
CASS Policy TemplateClient Assets is an area of high importance to the FCA. The regulator has made significant changes to this area since taking over the role from the FSA. The importance of Client Assets is mae clear by one of the FCA’s defining Principles for firms: –
Principle 10 Clients’ Assets – “A firm must arrange adequate protection for clients’ assets when it is responsible for them”.
Art. 13 and Art. 14 of the UK GDPR specify what information needs to be provided to individuals when their personal data is being processed. Art. 13 details the requirements where data has been collected directly from the data subject and should be provided in the form of a Privacy Notice.