Compliance

What is this guide and why is it important?

This guidance is made to outlay the importance of complying with the law and defining Anti Money Laundering (AML), Counter Terrorist Finance (CTF) and Counter Fraud Procedures. It will also include a brief description of the policies and procedures. Sanction list and risk-based approach will be explained with examples of how money can be laundered and how to stop it.

This guide will helps us:

• Detect and prevent money laundering & terrorist financing.
• Identify suspicious activity;
• Comply with our local laws and other AML regulations.

The money laundering legislation in the uk

Under the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations 2019 (MLRs), the company is obliged to provide all members of staff training on the law relating to money laundering/counter terrorist financing. We ensure that all our staff member have read the legislation so that they are aware of the potential criminal offences and the penalties. Where appropriate, HMRC guidance on the legislation is included to avoid confusion. Staff will be tested on their knowledge of the law as we are obliged to ensure that they are aware of it.

The regulations set against money laundering are:

• Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
• Terrorism Act 2000
• Criminal Finances Act 2017
• The Bribery Act 2010
• Note: more details regarding Bribery and Corruption are contained in the Manuals
• Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Act 2010
• Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001
• Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, Schedule 7
• Regulation (EU) 2015/847 on information accompanying transfers of funds (the Payments Regulation)
• Payment Service Regulations 2017
• Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 – hereafter referred to as the “2017 Regs”.
• Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations [Amendments] 2019 “The 2019 Regs”

Unique Global Services LTD responsibilities is to maintain with the regulations. Therefore, Unique Global Services LTD have appointed a Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO)

who will carry out regular audit on compliance with the regulations such as

• actively check adherence to the policies, controls, and procedures
• review of how effective they are
• recommend and carry out improvements

Staff training and awareness

All employees are given the appropriate training and are responsible for reading the AML manual, understanding their responsibilities, and acting accordingly. Ensure that company procedures are followed and all documentary evidence is obtained as specified in the manual. Ensure that all suspicious events are reported to MLRO. This training is conducted by the Compliance Officer or the compliance Trainer.

Safeguarding

Unique Global Services LTD is well aware of its obligation of safeguarding of funds as stated within the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 (EMRs) and Payment Services Regulations 2017 (PSRs).

• The obligation to safeguard starts immediately on receipt of funds (‘relevant funds’).
• The purpose of safeguarding is to protect customers funds held by an institution. They do this by ensuring that those funds are either placed in a separate account from the institution’s working capital and other funds, or are covered by an appropriate insurance policy or comparable guarantee.
• In case of the insolvency of an institution, claims of e-money holders or payment service users are paid from the asset pool formed from these funds in priority to all other creditors

How do we comply with duty?

The objective of the safeguarding rules is to consider what would happen to our client’s funds in the unlikely event that our firm went into administration.When we receive funds in relation to a trade, the money is received into a client bank account. Those client accounts are not commingled with firm money and in the unlikely event of administration, no other creditors can have access to these funds. We conduct daily reconciliations to ensure that the client balances as per our internal records corresponds to the funds held in the client accounts.

Data protection

The data protection legislation, i.e. The data protection act 2018 and the general data protection regulation (GDPR) governs the processing of information relating to individuals, including obtaining, holding, use or disclosure of information.

Personal data obtained by a business under the regulations may only be processed for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing unless use of the data is allowed by other legislation or after obtaining the consent of the data subject.

Unique Global Services LTD has a Data Protection policy which covers that personal data will only be used for the purposes of preventing money laundering and terrorist financing and provide them with the information as required under article 13 of the GDPR.

Customer due diligence and transaction processing

Customer due diligence means taking steps to identify your customers and checking they are who they are by asking government issued photo document and an official document; such as passport, driving license, utility bill and bank statement. Other sources of customer information include the electoral register and information held by credit reference agencies such as Experian and Equifax.

Identifying all ‘beneficial owners’, where applicable, and taking adequate risk-based measures to verify their identity. This may be because you need to establish the ownership structure of a company, partnership or trust. The beneficial owner is the person who’s behind the customer and who owns or controls the customer or it’s the customer on whose behalf a transaction or activity is carried out.

If you have doubts about a customer’s identity then you must stop dealing with them until you are sure

• Obtaining information on the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship
• Conducting ongoing monitoring of the business relationship, to ensure transactions are consistent with what the business knows about the customer, and the risk assessment
• Retain records of these checks and update them when there are changes

Unique Global Services LTD do customer due diligence when:

• Establishing a business relationship with a customer
• Money laundering or terrorist financing is suspected
• When we suspect that information obtained for due diligence checks on a customer is not reliable
• When it’s necessary for existing customers – for example if their circumstances change
• If they are not a high value dealer and they carry an ‘ocassional transaction’ worth £15,000 or more
• As a high value dealer, when they
• Make a payment to a supplier worth £10,000 or more
• Carry out an ‘occasional transaction’ worth £10,000 or more

When to apply customer due diligence for occasional transactions

Unique Global Services LTD must carry out customer due diligence measures as our business carries out occasional transactions. These are transactions that are not carried out within an ongoing business relationship where the value is:

• €15,000 or more if you’re not a high value dealer (or the equivalent in other currencies)
• €15,000 or more if you’re not a high value dealer (or the equivalent in other currencies)

This applies whether it’s a single transaction or linked transactions.

Non-compliance with customer due diligence

If we find that customer is not complying while performing the customer due diligence measures, then we do not: –

• Carry out a transaction with or for the customer
• Establish a business relationship or carry out an occasional transaction with the customer.
• Terminate any existing business relationship with the customer
• Consider making a suspicious activity report
• If no suspicious activity report is made, record the reasons why it is considered that a report is not required

Identifying Individuals

As part of our customer due diligence measures, we identify individuals. We obtain a private individual’s full name, date of birth and residential address as a minimum. We verify these using current government issued documents with the customer’s full name and photo, with a customer’s date of birth or residential address such as: –

• A valid passport
• A valid photo card driving licence (full or provisional)
• A national identity cards
• Firearms certificate
• An identity card issued by the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland
• When verifying the identity of a customer using the above list of government issued documents, we take a copy and keep it in the customer’s file.

Where the customer doesn’t have one of the above documents, we ask for the following: –

A government issued document (without a photo) which includes the customer’s full name and also secondary evidence of the customer’s address, for example an old-style driving licence or recent evidence of entitlement to state or local authority funded benefit such as housing benefit, council tax benefit, pension, tax credit.

Secondary evidence of the customer’s address, not downloaded from the internet, for example a utility bill, bank, building society or credit union statement or a most recent mortgage statement.

If Unique Global Services LTD verify the customer’s identity by documents, Unique Global Services LTD see the originals and not accept photocopies, nor accept downloads of bills, unless certified as described below: –

Photocopy’s identity documents can be accepted as evidence provided that each copy document has an original certification by an appropriate person to confirm that it is a true copy and the person is who they say they are for standard customer due diligence an appropriate person is for example a bank, financial institution, solicitor or notary, independent professional person, a family doctor, chartered accountant, civil servant, or minister of religion.

Unique Global Services LTD check the documents to satisfy yourself of the customer’s identity. This may include checking: –

• Spellings
• Validity
• Photo likeness
• Whether addresses match

If a member of our staff has visited an individual at their home address. A record of their visit may corroborate the individual’s residential address (instead of the need for a second document). This should be covered in the risk assessment.

Where an agent, representative or any other person acts on behalf of the customer we ensure that they are authorised to do so, identify them and verify the identity using documents from a reliable and independent source.

Know your customer (kyc)

KYC & KYB requirement are key aspects in Unique Global Services LTD relationships with its clients. The requirement to carry out customer due diligence and enhanced due diligence has given it an increased importance as it needs taking steps to identify your customers and checking they are who they say they are. KYC is a keystone in the fight against money laundering, serving to ensure our dealings are with genuine customers and organisations, and assisting in the identification of suspicious behaviour.

Obtaining the KYC information is only the first step to understanding with whom we are dealing. Unique Global Services LTD system is designed in a way that it continuously reviews the customers data with Risk Based approach in mind and when its necessary system will automatically request additional information on that customer account. This is to enable you to know enough about the customer and it is reasonably satisfied that they are genuine and do not pose a significant money laundering risk. You should therefore apply this policy with this objective in mind.