What’s Old is New Again, Well Updated
On June 9th, 2018, draft amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA) and its enacted regulations (there are five separate regulations that we’re going to collectively call regulations here for simplicity’s sake). This article is intended to give a high-level summary of the proposed amendments as they relate to Money Services Businesses (MSBs).
This article should not be considered advice (legal, tax or otherwise). That said, any of the content shared here may be used and shared freely – you don’t need our permission. While we’d love for content that we’ve written to be attributed to us, we believe that it’s more important to get reliable information into the hands of community members (meaning that if you punk content that we wrote, we may think you’re a jerk but we’re not sending an army of lawyers).
Finally, we want to encourage the community to discuss the proposed changes and submit meaningful feedback for policy makers. The comment period for this draft is 90 days. After this, the Department of Finance takes the feedback to the bat cave and drafts a final version of the amendments. From the time that the final version is published, the draft indicates that there will be 12 months of transition to comply with the new requirements.
♬The Times Regulations Are Changing♬
Foreign MSBs
Currently, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) has issued a policy interpretation (PI-5594) in August of 2013, which states that a “real and substantial connection” to Canada must be present for an entity to be required to register as an MSB with FINTRAC. A “real and substantial connection” was defined in the interpretation as having one or more of the following:
- Whether the business is incorporated in Canada;
- Whether the business has agents in Canada;
- Whether the business has physical locations in Canada; and/ or
- Whether the business maintains a bank account or a server in Canada.
The draft amendments introduce a new definition, which is “Foreign Money Services Business” that means anyone serving Canadian customers or entities in Canada is now subject to all Canadian requirements no matter where they are located. Throughout the proposed changes, where there is a reference to money services businesses, there is also a reference to foreign money services businesses. This will be significant to MSBs who operate non-face-to-face in the online marketplace and do not reside in Canada.
Non-Face-To-Face Customer Identification
Currently, there is a requirement that when customers are identified using the dual process method, the document and/or data that you collect is in its “original” format. This has been interpreted to mean that if the customer receives a utility bill in the mail, they must send you the original paper (not scanned or copied) document. The word “original” will be replaced with “authentic” (meaning that so long as you believe that the utility bill is a real utility bill for that person, it doesn’t need to be the same piece of paper that they received in the mail).
In addition, there are provisions that would allow reporting entities to rely on the identification conducted previously by other reporting entities. If this method is used to identify a customer, the reporting entity must immediately obtain the identification information from the other reporting entity and have a written agreement in place requiring the entity doing the identification to provide the identification verification within 3 days of the request.
Reporting EFTs of $10,000 or More
If you conduct international remittance transactions at the request of your customers, the requirement to report transactions of $10,000 or more will now be your responsibility, not your financial services provider.
The proposed change removes the language commonly known as the “first in, last out” rule. This means that the first person/entity to ‘touch’ the funds for transactions incoming to Canada or the last person/entity to ‘touch’ the funds for a transaction outgoing from Canada had the reporting obligation (as long as the prescribed information was provided to them).
The update will change the reporting obligation to whoever maintains the customer relationship. So if you initiate a transaction at your customer’s request (outgoing transaction) or provide final receipt of payment to your customer (incoming transaction), it will be your obligation to report that transaction to FINTRAC.
For example, if the flow of the instructions for payment were as follows:
Currently, the reporting obligation of the outgoing EFT would fall to the bank in Canada. With the draft updates, the reporting obligation would now fall to the MSB in Canada, because they have the relationship with the customer initiating the transaction.
Third Party Determination
Currently, the obligation to determine whether a third party is involved in a transaction relates to Large Cash Transactions. The proposed changes would include the obligation to make a third party determination for all EFTs of $10,000 or more. This would also require similar record keeping obligations as a third party determination under the current Large Cash Transaction records.
Suspicious Transaction Reporting
Currently, if a reporting entity has reasonable grounds to suspect that a transaction or attempted transaction is related to money laundering or terrorist financing, a report must be submitted to FINTRAC within 30 days of the date that a fact was discovered that caused the suspicion. This change appeared in the last round of amendments that came into force last year, and the proposed new wording would be another significant change:
The person or entity shall send the report to the Centre within three days after the day on which measures taken by them enable them to establish that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the transaction or attempted transaction is related to the commission of a money laundering offence or a terrorist activity financing offence.
This means that a report would be due three days after the reporting entity conducts an investigation or does something that allows them to reach the conclusion that there are reasonable grounds to suspect.
Information Included In Reports to FINTRAC
Certain information is required in reports to FINTRAC. Even where information is marked as being optional, if a reporting entity has the information, it becomes mandatory to include it. Some of the additional proposed data fields are:
- every reference number that is connected to the transaction,
- type of device used by person who makes request online,
- number that identifies device,
- internet protocol address (IP address) used by device,
- person’s user name, and
- date and time of person’s online session in which request is made.
These fields may require significantly more data to be included in reports, especially for transactions that are conducted online.
Ongoing Compliance Training
Currently, there are five required elements of a Canadian AML compliance program, but there is soon to be a sixth. Before you get too worried, it’s not that major. The change is specific to your ongoing compliance training obligations, which says you must institute and document a plan for your ongoing compliance training program and the delivery of the training. Basically, in your AML compliance program documentation, you need to provide a description of your training program for at least the next year and how the training will be delivered. Many MSBs have already implemented this best practice.
Risk Assessment Obligations
With the recent addition of the “New Technologies and Developments” category to the Risk-Based Approach requirements, the next logical progression has be added. The updates include the obligation to assess the money laundering and terrorist financing risk of any new technology before implementation. Meaning, if you are looking to take your business online and are going to use this fancy, new non-face-to-face ID system, you had better take careful inventory of where your risks are and be sure the appropriate controls have been put in place before going live. Much like the training plan, many MSBs have already implemented this best practice.
Virtual Currency
The draft updates also include major changes related to virtual currency. “Dealers in virtual currencies’ would be regulated as MSBs. New record keeping and reporting obligations would apply to all reporting entities that accept payment in virtual currency, or send virtual currency on behalf of their customers.
For more information on updates specific to virtual currency, please check out our full article.
What Next
If you’ve read this far, congratulations and thank you!
We hope that you will contribute your thoughts and comments. You can do this by contacting the Department of Finance directly. Their representative on this file is:
Lynn Hemmings
Acting Director General
Financial Systems Division
Financial Sector Policy Branch
Department of Finance
90 Elgin Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0G5
Email: fin.fc-cf.fin@canada.ca
If you would like assistance drafting a submission, or have questions that you would like Outlier to answer, please get in touch!
If you are interested in sharing your comments with the Canadian MSB Association (and we highly encourage you to do so) please email luisa@global-currency.com. She will have more information on the industry group’s submission and consultation process.