In May 2010 the FSA published ‘The Small Firms Financial Crime Review’ (see Regulatory Roundup 15 for our comments and a link to the document) which covered the three main areas of AML & financial sanctions; data security; and fraud controls.
Of particular use was Annex 2 which contained examples of both good practice (e.g. dual signatures required for all payments made over £5,000) and bad practice (e.g. the MLRO that was unfamiliar with the JMLSG guidance) which firms could use as a basis for a self review.
The FSA has published new guidance on financial crime in the form of CP11/12. The guidance is just that: it does not contain any rules nor imposes any new requirements and is not meant to compete with the JMLSG guidance. The expected areas of AML, data security and fraud are covered with the Bribery Act 2010 making its first appearance (a reminder to firms that this Act came into force on 1 July and by now firms should be able to demonstrate ‘adequate procedures’: see past Regulatory Roundups e.g. Issue 28).As in the earlier guidance, the proposed guidance – which is actually in two parts being ‘preventing financial crime’ and ‘thematic reviews’ – takes the form of examples of both good and poor practice together with a glossary of terms.
The FSA invite comments on CP11/12 until 21 September.
