Reporting entities, as required by the AML&CTF Act, must establish and maintain a procedure manual to ensure the entities’ officers and employees are aware: of the laws of Vanuatu about money laundering and financing of terrorism; of the policies, processes and procedures adopted by the entities in implementing and complying with the Customer Due Diligence requirement, record keeping requirement, AML&CTF Compliance Officer requirement, reporting requirement, risk-based systems and controls requirements and audit system adopted by the entity to deal with money laundering and financing of terrorism; and to train the entity’s officers and employees to recognise and deal with money laundering and financing of terrorism.
money laundering and financing of terrorism. The procedure manual must contain procedures to implement the reporting requirement, CDD requirement, record keeping requirement and audit and risk management systems.
Reporting entities must submit to the FIU its updated Procedure manual on the 31st of March each year, unless instructed otherwise. The procedure manual submitted must be approved by the entity’s top management team.
See section 33 of https://vga.vu/docs/aml-ctf-legislation/
RISK-BASED SYSTEMS AND CONTROLS #
As required by the AML&CTF Act, reporting entities must be able to identify, understand and mitigate/manage ML&TF risk it may be exposed to. Reporting entities are required to conduct a risk assessment on their :
- customer types
- services/products on offer
- methods by which they deliver their services/products including use of technology
- foreign jurisdictions they deal with
- own organisation structure and staff recruitment/retention
Controls and management tools must be implemented by reporting entities to mitigate or manage any ML&TF risks identified in the risk assessment. This include establishment of enhanced customer due diligence process for high risk customers, services/products, delivery methods, foreign jurisdictions and organisational structure.
See section 35 of https://vga.vu/docs/aml-ctf-legislation/.
AML&CTF GROUP-WIDE PROCEDURE MANUAL #
Reporting entities that have branches, agents or subsidiaries or are planning to operate branches, agents or subsidiaries must, in addition to its own AML&CTF Procedure Manual, establish and maintain an AML&CTF Group-Wide Procedure Manual for these branches, agents or subsidiaries.
The Group-Wide Manual must contain group-wide policies, processes and procedures on requirements stated under section 33(2) of the AML&CTF Act.
Reporting entities must submit to the FIU its updated Group-Wide Procedure manual on 31 March each year, unless instructed otherwise. The group-wide procedure manual submitted must be approved by the entity’s top management team.
See section 33A of https://vga.vu/docs/aml-ctf-legislation/.