We strongly recommend that you are familiar with the following documents before you undertake your risk assessment.
FMA's Sector Risk Assessment (SRA) is a review of the characteristics of certain sectors of the financial system. It assesses the level of risk of money laundering occurring in that sector and outlines any particular risks in that area. You can also read sector risk assessments prepared by the Reserve Bank and the Department of Internal Affairs for the sectors they supervise, and the national risk assessment.
This guideline is designed to help you conduct your money laundering and terrorism financing risk assessment (risk assessment) under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act 2009 (the Act).
Download the Supervisor's risk assessment guide to AML/CFT obligations PDF, 155KB.
This guide describes how a small financial adviser business may go about AML/CFT obligations in a simple way. It focuses on risk assessments, customer due diligence (CDD) and suspicious transaction reports (STR) because they are particularly important obligations under the AML/CFT regime, which affect financial advisers in a unique way.
Download the AML/CFT guide for small financial adviser businesses PDF, 570KB.
The AML/CFT programme will set out your procedures, policies and controls for detecting, managing and mitigating the risk of money laundering, and the financing of terrorism your business may reasonably expect to face. The programme must be in writing and based on your risk assessment.
All reporting entities are required to prepare an annual report on their risk assessment and AML/CFT programme. Information from these reports will provide us with important information on the people and organisations we supervise, and help us:
Completing your annual report
To complete the annual report, you will need your most recent financial year-end data.
We also recommend that you:
How to submit your report
The e-services portal is no longer available. If your AML/CFT return is outstanding or you need to resubmit it please contact us. We will provide you with a pdf that needs to be completed and emailed back to us.
Need help?
If you experience any problems submitting your report or if you need help, please email us at aml@fma.govt.nz or call us on 0800 434 566.
Refer to the following guides and reports for more information:
This guideline is to help reporting entities manage the requirement to audit their AML/CFT risk assessment and AML/CFT programme, as required under section 59(2) of the AML/CFT Act.
Download the Audit Guideline for risk assessment and AML/CFT programme PDF, 290KB.
This information is intended to help our REs, especially small financial adviser businesses, get value from their AML/CFT Audit. Adopting all (or any) of these items in discussions with auditors is optional, but we believe that by considering these suggestions, REs are more likely to achieve the best possible results from their audit.
Download Getting the best outcome from your AML/CFT audit guide PDF, 1.3MB.
This report provides a general commentary on some of the audits we have examined from the period from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2018, which marked our fifth year of monitoring compliance with the Act. We focused on risk assessments being up to date and well-maintained; adequacy and effectiveness of policies, procedures and controls as per the AML/CFT programme; customer due diligence, ongoing customer due diligence and enhanced due diligence; governance and management oversight.
Reporting entities are required to submit prescribed transaction reports (PTR) to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) at the Police.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (Prescribed Transactions Reporting) Regulations 2016 specify the following threshold values for the two types of prescribed transaction:
In the case of an international wire transfer, the first reporting entity to transfer funds, and the last reporting entity to receive funds, must do a PTR. We expect that a reporting entity that receives and/or passes on instructions from a client to do an international wire transfer, but does not actually transfer the funds, is not required to do a PTR. This means that international wire transfers carried out by a bank on behalf of another reporting entity will be reportable by the bank. If an international wire transfer is settled outside the banking system (for example if a reporting entity carries out a transaction on behalf of a client and as a result money is made available to a beneficiary at another entity in another jurisdiction) the reporting entity must submit a PTR.
Automated reporting
Automated reporting applies to those entities submitting PTRs through the FIU xml schema. To ensure smooth implementation of automated reporting a transitional compliance period will apply until 1 July 2018. REs submitting automated reports are expected to provide PTRs as soon as they are able from 1 November 2017. However, REs will not be considered non-compliant prior to the end of the transitional compliance period (1 July 2018).
Manual reporting
Manually reporting applies to entities submitting reports one-by-one into the goAML web tool. REs submitting PTRs manually to the FIU are expected to report from 1 November 2017. PTRs will be used by FIU to help build an intelligence picture across the financial system. Please refer to the FIU website for more information. If you have any further questions please email us at aml@fma.govt.nz.