Real estate agents, brokers advised to comply with anti-laundering act

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has issued a notice advising real estate agents and brokers that they are to comply with the obligations outlined in the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/ CFT) Act No. 13 of 2009 and they have until June month end to register or make contact with the unit.

A notice by the FIU Director which was published in the May 28 edition of the Sunday Stabroek advised that “all persons or entities carrying on a business or operating as Real Estate Agents or Real Estate Brokers…are required to comply with, inter alia, the obligations set out under Sections 15, 16, 18 and 19 of the said Act”.

Real estate agents fall under one of the categories of reporting agents and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) is the supervisory authority for this category.

Section 15 of the Act speaks about reporting entities identifying and verifying the identity of a customer and is divided into a number of parts.

Section 16 deals specifically with the obligation of the reporting entities with respect to the maintenance of a record of all transactions which would be valid for a period of at least seven years from the date the relevant transaction was completed, or termination of business relationship, whichever is the later as well as evidence of the customer’s identity.

According to the Act, Section 18 deals with reporting of suspicious business transactions by reporting entities. Specifically part 6 of this section states “Real estate agents shall report suspicious transactions in accordance with subsection (1) to the Financial Intelligence Unit when involved in transactions for their clients concerning the buying or selling of real estate”.

Section 19 deals with the requirements of reporting entities.

This section states that a reporting entity shall appoint a compliance officer who will be responsible for ensuring the reporting entity’s compliance with the requirements of this Act. It says that a reporting entity shall establish and maintain internal policies, procedures, controls and systems to “(i) implement the customer identification requirements; (ii) implement record keeping and retention requirements; (iii) implement the monitoring requirements; (iv) implement the reporting requirements under section 18; (v) make its officers and employees aware of the law relating to combating money laundering and terrorist financing; (vi) make its officers and employees aware of the procedures and policies adopted by it to deter money laundering and terrorist financing ; and (vii) screen persons before hiring them as employees”.

It added that the reporting entity shall establish an audit function to test its anti-money laundering and combating of terrorist financing procedures and systems as well as train its officers, employees and agents to recognise suspicious transactions.

According to the notice these obligations that the real estate agents and brokers must honour include the submission of specific reports and other information to the entity.

It states that to commence the AML/CFT compliance process, these persons or entities are required to contact the unit on or before June 30, 2017 to initiate a registration process.

The notice advised that the FIU can be contacted on telephone number 231 6781 or via email at info@fiu.gov.gy. Those being targeted by the notice can also visit the unit’s office at the Ministry of Finance, 49 Main and Urquhart Streets, Georgetown.

According to the notice, persons or entities that were previously registered are still “required to contact the FIU for further information and guidance”.

The FIU, according to its website, is an agency responsible for the requesting, receiving, analysing and disseminating of suspicious transaction reports and other information relating to money laundering, terrorist financing or proceeds of crime.

Among some of its key responsibilities is the compilation of reports for competent law enforcement authorities if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that transactions involve money laundering or are proceeds of crime or terrorist financing.

Banks, under the AML/CFT legislation, are required to submit Suspicious Activity Reports to the FIU.

According to the FIU website, “a reporting entity must pay special attention to all complex, unusual or large business transactions, whether completed or not, and to all unusual patterns of transactions and to insignificant but periodic transactions, which have no apparent economic or lawful purpose.”