This article is focused on business relationships that are not account-based (which means that if you are a financial institution or a securities dealer that only conducts transactions with your customers in the context of the accounts that they hold with you, you can skip this one).

Over the past few months, I have assisted some of my clients with their Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) examinations.  While I cannot generally answer questions on my clients’ behalf during these meetings, I can help them prepare for the examination, understand what the examiner is asking for, and redirect them if they stray off track (provided that they have signed an Authorizing_or_Cancelling_a_Representative form). While the businesses examined were quite different in size and complexity, their examinations have been similar, particularly when it came to questions about business relationships.  

For certain types of reporting entities, including money services businesses (MSBs), real estate businesses, and dealers in precious metals and stones (DPMSs) (which are the focus of this article), during each on-site review, the FINTRAC examiner requested a list of all the “Business Relationships” for the review period. Certain information was requested, which was the same in each instance, and included the following:

• The purpose and intended nature of the business relationship (sometimes called PINBR for short);
• The risk rating;
• The date the reporting entity entered into a business relationship with the customer; 
• The records of any ongoing monitoring (or enhanced measures for high risk business relationships) that has been conducted; and 
• The last time the customer information was reviewed/updated.

In most cases, this information was not requested in advance.  This meant that it needed to be provided to the examiner while the examiner was on-site (typically a single business day).  For some reporting entities, obtaining this information was not something that their recordkeeping systems were set up to do easily.

Quick Review – What is a Business Relationship?

The Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Regulations (PCMLTFR) defines a Business Relationship as:

Any relationship with a client, established by a person or entity, to conduct financial transactions or provide services related to those transactions and, as the case may be,

(a) If the client holds one or more accounts with that person or entity, all transactions and activities relating to those accounts; or

(b) If the client does not hold an account, only those transactions and activities in respect of which that person or entity is required to ascertain the identity of a person or confirm the existence of an entity under these Regulations.

If you’re not entirely certain what that means, FINTRAC’s guidance on Business Relationship Requirements provides additional clarification:

You enter into a Business Relationship when you conduct two or more transactions where you have to:

1. 1. ID an individual; or
   2. Confirm the existence of an organization.

Specifically, conducting the following transactions or activities that require you to identify an individual or confirm the existence of an entity:

• Remittances or transmissions of $1,000 or more (for MSBs);
• Foreign currency exchange of $3,000 or more (for MSBs);
• Issuing or redeeming negotiable instruments of $3,000 or more (for MSBs);
• Large cash transactions (for all reporting entity types);
• Suspicious transactions and attempted suspicious transactions (for all reporting entity types);
• Activities which trigger a receipt of funds record (for Real Estate);
• Virtual currency exchange transactions of $1,000 or more (for MSBs as of June 1, 2020);
• Large Virtual Currency Transactions Reports (for all reporting entities as of June 1, 2020); and
• Activities which trigger the creation of a client information record (it’s probably worth mentioning here that these will also trigger a third party determination):
  • Entering into an ongoing service agreement with a customer that is an entity (for MSBs); and/or
  • Entering into a purchase or sale agreement (for Real Estate).

In its simplest form, a business relationship means that a client or customer has done two things that cause identification requirements to be triggered.

Business Relationship Recordkeeping & Monitoring

When you establish a Business Relationship with a customer, you have three things to do.  

First, determine and record the “purpose and intended nature” of the Business Relationship. Some examples provided in the FINTRAC guidance are: 

For MSBs:

• Foreign exchange for travel or purchase of goods; 
• Funds transfers for family support or purchase of goods; 
• Buying/cashing money orders or traveller’s cheques; 

For Real Estate businesses:

• Purchasing or selling residential property;
• Purchasing or selling commercial property;
• Purchase or selling land for commercial use;

For DPMSs:

• Purchasing or selling jewellery;
• Purchasing or selling precious metals (for example, gold, silver, platinum, or palladium); and
• Purchasing or selling precious stones (for example, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, tanzanite, rubies, or alexandrite).

Next, you need to conduct ongoing monitoring of all Business Relationships, based on the level of risk.  This seems to be where the biggest stumbling blocks are for reporting entities. The purpose of ongoing monitoring is to ensure the following:

• Detect any transactions that need to be reported as suspicious;
• Keep identification and beneficial ownership information, as well as the purpose and intended nature records, up-to-date;
• Reassess the risk level based on their transactions and activities; and 
• Determine if the transactions make sense given the nature and purpose recorded.

It is not enough just to conduct the monitoring, you must be able to produce some type of record that proves that you’ve done the monitoring. The record should be specific about what was done, and what conclusions were drawn.

If there is something out of the ordinary, expect that the FINTRAC examiner will ask questions. For example, if a customer has indicated that the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship is “fund transfer for family support” but it is clear that payments are being made that are related to the purchase of goods, questions will be raised. It is expected that information about the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship is updated if it has changed – and that you will ask questions when the actual transaction patterns are different than what you expected.

It is this final step, keeping a record of the measures taken to monitor your business relationships and the information you obtain as a result, that is most crucial to successful examination results. 

The additional information collected about the customer is used to compare your expectations for that relationship, with the transactions that customer is conducting.  

Here are a few examples, broken down by industry:

MSBs

If the nature and purpose provided was foreign exchange for travel, does it make sense that the customer returns every other day with $2,700 in cash?   

DPMSs

If the nature and purpose provided was purchasing jewellery as a wedding gift, does it make sense that the customer returns every month on the same day to make a new purchase?

Real Estate

If the nature and purpose provided was the purchase of a first-time owner-occupied home, does it make sense that the customer purchases another owner-occupied home shortly after?  

In each of the scenarios above, it is quite clear that the activities don’t align with the nature and purpose of the business relationship collected. This doesn’t automatically make it suspicious, but certainly leaves some questions that need answering. When you question the customer about the discrepancy, be sure you’re taking notes.  This does not have to be a complete reiteration (though it can be), but simply a brief synopsis of the conversation, any additional information collected and/or adjustments made to the customer’s risk rating. It should be written in a way that would be clear to someone from outside of your business that is reading the notes two years later.

Recording these types of discussions is paramount to evidence that you’re meeting your ongoing monitoring obligations because, in the compliance world, if you can’t prove it… it never happened.

FINTRAC Exam Readiness Tool for Business Relationships

We’ve made a quick checklist to help you prepare for your FINTRAC examinations.

Need a Hand?

Outlier has created a FINTRAC Examination Preparation Package, and it can be downloaded for free here.  FINTRAC has also provided information on their assessment manual, which details the approach and methods it uses to conduct compliance examinations. 

For additional information, assistance, or a review of your FINTRAC Examination submission package (the information requested by FINTRAC for an examination), you can get in touch using our online form, by emailing info@outliercanada.com, or by calling us toll-free at 1-844-919-1623.  At Outlier, we firmly believe that good compliance is good business.