These are the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Policy and Procedures adopted by JBM Financial Services and Bureau De Change Limited in compliance with The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017 (MLR). The business will actively prevent and take measures to guard against being used as a medium for money laundering activities and terrorism financing activities and any other activity that facilitates money laundering or the funding of terrorist or criminal activities. To these ends:
As stated above, JBM Financial Services and Bureau De Change Limited is required under the Money Laundering Regulations to put in place appropriate systems and controls to forestall money laundering and terrorist financing. This policy contains the procedures that we have developed in order to comply with these obligations. The Money Laundering Regulations require that an organisation has a Nominated Officer to ensure that there is up-to-date knowledge of issues relating to Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing throughout the organisation, implement appropriate policies and procedures and receive reports of suspicious activity.
Money laundering is the process through which proceeds of crime and their true origin and ownership are changed so that the proceeds appear legitimate. Terrorist financing is providing or collecting funds, from legitimate or illegitimate sources, to be used to carry out an act of terrorism.
The anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) regime is designed to prevent our platform from being used by criminals. You have obligations under the AML/CTF regime to spot and report money laundering and terrorist financing. Failure to meet these obligations can lead to criminal penalties, substantial fines, and untold damage to JBM Financial Services and Bureau De Change Limited's reputation and credibility.
Typically, money laundering involves three stages:
The process of placing criminal property into the financial system. This might be done by breaking up large sums of cash into smaller amounts or by using a series of financial instruments (such as cheques or money orders) which are deposited at different locations.
The process of moving money that has been placed in the financial system in order to obscure its criminal origin. This is usually achieved through multiple complex transactions often involving complicated offshore company structures and trusts but can also involve multiple small transactions between individuals.
Once the origin of the money is disguised, it ultimately must reappear in the financial system as legitimate funds. This process involves investing the money in legitimate businesses and other investments such as property purchases or setting up trusts.
JBM Financial Services and Bureau De Change Limited is most likely at risk in the layering stage but potentially could be at risk at any stage.
Remaining alert is key to recognizing the warning signs of money laundering and terrorist financing, and one should make the sort of inquiries that a reasonable person with the same qualifications, knowledge, and experience would make.
Criminals are always developing new techniques, so this list can never be exhaustive.
Any customer or client activity outside the normal or expected activity should be considered unusual and must be investigated. Unusual activity or transactions should be considered as a potential indicator of suspicious activity. Investigations should establish the reasons for the unusual activity or transaction. This may either remove or confirm your suspicion. If it is confirmed, you must report it to the MLRO.
Failure to do so is an offence that could result in a custodial sentence.
Report it to the MLRO. Do not carry out the transaction or proceed unless you have consent from the MLRO. They will review the suspicion and, if required, submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) to the National Crime Agency (NCA). Only the MLRO or deputy may submit an SAR to the NCA. Once you have reported your suspicion to the MLRO, they will send you an acknowledgment within a short period of time. If more information is required, the MLRO will request it from you.
If the MLRO gives you consent to proceed with a transaction, then that consent only applies to that specific transaction. If the client requests further activities or transactions, further consent is required from the MLRO even if you do not have a suspicion.
This is a suspicious activity report which financial institutions must make if they suspect something in a transaction is illegal. Law enforcement will decide after a SAR has been submitted. If no response has been received within seven working days after the SAR was submitted, then the transaction can proceed. It may be a tipping off offense to reveal to the customer that a SAR has been submitted. A SAR should be submitted within 48 hours of a suspicion being activated, and that a SAR being made should never be placed on the file of the entity in question.
In most jurisdictions, it is an offense for someone to tip off (inform) a person suspected of money laundering that a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) has been made or that there is a money laundering investigation taking place. There are several defenses and exceptions that apply, but in general, a tipping off offense would occur when the action is likely to prejudice an investigation that’s taking place.
A tipping off offense cannot be committed if a report has not been submitted and you liaise with clients or colleagues as part of your inquiries into unusual activity.
However, you cannot mention the word suspicious.
The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA 2002) establishes several money laundering offences:
Each offence is explained below. All money laundering offences relate to criminal property, which is property that constitutes or represents a person's benefit:
You will commit a principal money laundering offence if you:
You will commit an offence if you:
This includes concealing or disguising its:
You must know or suspect that the criminal property represents a benefit from criminal conduct.
You will commit an offence if you:
Possession means having physical custody of the criminal property. The principal money laundering offences carry a maximum penalty of 14 years' imprisonment, a fine, or both. You will have a defence to a principal money laundering offence if you submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) to the Nominated Officer.
Making an SAR to the Nominated Officer can be a defence to a principal money laundering offence.
Failing to make a SAR to the Nominated Officer where you know or suspect money laundering is an offence which is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both.
You will commit the tipping-off offence if you disclose to the person to whom the disclosure relates that you, or anyone else:
You will commit the prejudicing of an investigation offence if you disclose that an investigation is being contemplated or carried out and that disclosure is likely to prejudice that investigation. Further, you will commit an offence if you know or suspect that an investigation is being or is about to be conducted and you interfere with documents that are relevant to the investigation. Tipping-off can only be committed after an SAR by the AML officer has been made. You will not commit tipping-off by discussing your concerns with or submitting a SAR to the MLRO. All these offences are punishable by up to five years' imprisonment, a fine, or both.
The existence of these offences does not prevent you from making normal enquiries about your clients' instructions. You can make enquiries in order to:
Your enquiries will only constitute an offence if you disclose that an SAR has been made or that an investigation is being carried out or contemplated. It is also not tipping-off to warn clients or partners of your duties under the AML/CTF regime by providing them with our terms of business.
Terrorists need funds to plan and carry out attacks. The Terrorism Act 2000 (TA 2000) criminalises both participation in terrorist activities and terrorist financing. In general terms, terrorist financing is:
The provision or collection of funds from legitimate or illegitimate sources, with the intention or in the knowledge that they should be used in order to carry out any act of terrorism, whether or not those funds are in fact used for that purpose.
The TA 2000 establishes a similar pattern of offences to those contained in POCA 2002, i.e.:
All offences carry heavy criminal penalties. While the terrorist financing and money laundering regimes are different, they share similar aims and structures and run together in UK legislation. Many of the provisions of POCA 2002 and TA 2000 mirror one another and the definitions are deliberately matched.
Both POCA 2002 and TA 2000 run parallel to the Money Laundering Regulations 2007 (Amended 2012), which are explained below.
The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 set administrative requirements which require us to have systems and controls to forestall money laundering and terrorist financing. They implement the standards of the Fourth European and Money Laundering Directive into UK law.
Customer Due Diligence is identifying the customer or business partner, and ensuring it is based on a reliable independent source. The purpose and intended nature of the transaction must be assessed and further information obtained where appropriate.
CDD happens before we enter any financial activity with a customer or business partner:
We leverage technology to carry out independent checks to verify customers in real time, the results of which will determine if we onboard the customer or not. A failed check does not automatically mean money laundering or terrorist activity, but should be reported to the MLRO, nonetheless.
If entering a business arrangement or partnership, you must start with assessing the risk of money laundering or terrorist financing posed by the individual or entity and complete a risk assessment (Appendix 1). Once this is complete, you must decide what level of CDD is necessary. This will then inform your next steps.
Simplified Due Diligence applies where there is little chance of money laundering or terrorist financing. This means that we can carry out a reduced Customer Due Diligence exercise. For example, if the customer or business partner is listed on a regulated market, they may be perceived to be a lower risk as they are required to disclose information.
Regular due diligence is the level of due diligence that will be used for many cases. These are generally situations where there is a potential risk, but it is unlikely that these risks will be realised.
Standard due diligence requires the customer’s identity to be verified. This due diligence should provide you with confidence that you know who your customer is and that your service or product is not being used as a tool to launder money or any other criminal activity.
As with simplified due diligence, there is a requirement to monitor the customer, which will highlight any potential trigger events that may result in further due diligence being required.
We are required to carry out Enhanced Due Diligence where there is a greater perceived risk of money laundering or terrorist financing. This requires us to take additional steps to understand the ownership and control of the client and, in some cases, the source of funds involved in the matter. There is also a greater focus on ongoing monitoring.
You must conduct EDD on:
It does not include middle-ranking or more junior individuals in these categories. We also apply EDD to UK PEPs on a risk-sensitive basis. If you receive communication from a UK PEP, please discuss the Customer Due Diligence requirements with the Nominated Officer.
Understanding your client's source of funds is an important step in the CDD process.
You are not required to interrogate all business partners or clients about their entire financial history, but you are required to take additional steps to ensure that the transaction is consistent with your knowledge of the client. This is part of the ongoing monitoring exercise which you must conduct on all matters.
You are required to establish the source of funds and source of wealth in every matter where you are beginning a potential business partnership on behalf of JBM Remittance with a Politically Exposed Person (PEP).
Scrutinising the source of funds is more than asking for the money to come from a bank account in the client's name. Your focus should be on understanding how the client can legitimately fund the transaction. For transactions involving PEPs, you should consider whether there:
Where a third party is providing funding to your business client, you may need to establish the source of funds. You must document your investigations into the source of funds, including any questions asked, responses received, and supporting evidence provided.
If you have any concerns about the source of funds, you must consider whether you need to submit an SAR to the Nominated Officer.
CDD on beneficial owners is different from CDD on clients. You must:
Where you have received communication from a representative of an individual, the beneficial owner is the underlying individual on whose behalf the representative is contacting you. Where you are contacted by a company, partnership, or other body, the beneficial owner is as follows:
You must first identify the beneficial owners. You can do this through a reliable public source (e.g., Companies House), or by asking the client. Unless there is any reason to doubt the information given, you can rely on the client's word. You must then consider the client's risk profile, the structure of the business, and the nature of the transaction. This will help you to decide what steps you need to take to verify the beneficial owner's identity. In assessing the risk, you should consider:
The key is to understand the ownership and control of the client.
The level of verification required will depend on your assessment of the client's risk profile. When verifying the beneficial owner, you can:
There are very limited circumstances in which this may not apply, e.g., we may be able to verify the client's identity during the establishment of a business relationship if this is necessary to avoid interrupting the normal course of business and there is a viable risk of money laundering - this is on condition that the verification is completed as soon as practicable after contact is first established.
You must never unilaterally decide that it is acceptable to delay completion of CDD.
You must understand the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship.
This is a key part of the CDD process. It will enable you to perform your risk assessment of the client and help you to determine appropriate CDD measures.
Knowing more about the client and their normal activities will help you to spot something unusual. A transaction which appears to serve no purpose could be a money laundering or terrorist financing warning flag.
Ongoing monitoring is an intrinsic part of the CDD process. It must be performed on all matters, regardless of their individual risk rating, to detect unusual or suspicious transactions. How do I conduct ongoing monitoring?
JBM Financial Services and Bureau De Change Limited will:
All relevant staff of JBM Remittance will receive training.
Training is provided through online courses. It covers:
Completion of training is compulsory.
All new joiners will receive training as part of the induction process. Further training will be provided as required.
The Nominated Officer will continually monitor training needs, but if you feel that you need further training on any aspect of the relevant law or our AML/CTF policy and procedures, please contact Mr. Saidou Sowe.
Compliance will be continually monitored through any or all of the following methods:
Failure to comply puts both you and the organisation at risk. You may commit a criminal offence if you fail to comply with this policy. The AML and CTF regimes carry heavy criminal penalties ranging from two years' imprisonment for failing to apply appropriate CDD measures to 14 years' imprisonment for committing a principal money laundering or terrorist financing offence. We take compliance with this policy very seriously. Because of the importance of this policy, failure to comply with any requirement may lead to disciplinary action under our procedures, which may result in dismissal.
We will review this policy at least annually as part of our overall risk management process. We will also review this policy if:
You can get further advice and guidance from the Nominated Officer.
JBM Financial Services and Bureau De Change Limited is registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority as a PSD Agent of Premier Payment Solutions Ltd. (PPS Money). PPS Money is regulated by The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) firm reference Number 914814 and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs registration number XFML00000145124. We are bound by the Data Protection Act 1998 registration number CSN6782832
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