Quick Overview
A little over a month ago, FINTRAC published an operational brief for the Canadian real estate industry. The brief was intended to assist reporting entities in meeting the obligations to report suspicious transactions or attempted suspicious transactions that related to potential money laundering or terrorist financing. The publication provided some common indicators that may be present in a transaction that suggest money laundering or terrorist financing could be involved.
What Does it Mean?
The suspicious indicators provided by FINTRAC list circumstances or activities that might signal potentially illicit activity. This does not mean that if one or more of the indicators are present that the transaction is definitely suspicious and must be reported to FINTRAC, it is meant to ensure that you are aware of the potential that suspicious activity may be taking place. In that context, if you are involved in real estate transactions, you must be aware of the indicators in the brief. If you do encounter a transaction that may be considered suspicious, you will need to collect additional information that will aid in your decision to report it or document why it was not considered suspicious.
What Now?
In order to ensure familiarity for anyone who interacts with customers and their transactions, the list of FINTRAC’s indicators should be included in your ongoing AML compliance training program. Furthermore, the indicators should also be included in your procedure manuals, allowing easy access to the information. Finally, the indicators should be incorporated into your Risk Assessment documentation. Specifically, when determining customer risk and the controls used to effectively mitigate potential risks.
We’ve made it easier for you to integrate this content into your program by putting the indicators in a Word document for you.
Need a Hand?
Outlier has taken the list of indicators provided by FINTRAC and formatted them into an easy to use Microsoft Word document, which can be downloaded here: FINTRAC Indicators Specific to Real Estate Transactions. This should allow companies within the real estate sector to easily update their documentation and ensure they are sufficiently monitoring for potentially suspicious activity. If you aren’t sure what to do with this information and would like some assistance, please feel free to contact us.
