The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) reminds newly identified accountable institutions to continue registering with the regulatory authority to avoid non-compliance with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FIC Act).
The 90-day non-penalty window for various new and other identified accountable institutions to register with the FIC closed at end of business on Monday, 20 March 2023.
Head of Compliance and Prevention at the FIC, Christopher Malan, urged these accountable institutions to register as an important first step to fulfil their risk and compliance obligations and play their part in combating financial crime.
“It has come to our attention that not all identified accountable institutions in designated sectors have as yet registered with the FIC as required,” Malan said.
“Accountable institutions that have not yet registered with the FIC in respect of all the items in which they conduct business, are currently non-compliant with the FIC Act. These institutions must register with the FIC to avoid attracting increasing administration sanctions for non-compliance and late registration.”
It is vital for the new accountable institutions to understand their obligations in terms of the FIC Act. This starts by being registered with the FIC. In this way, the business community can play its part in contributing to addressing a strategic deficiency identified by the Financial Action Task Force grey list process.
Amendments to the Schedule items in the FIC Act came into effect on 19 December 2022. The amendments saw the inclusion of new designated items in Schedule 1 consisting of co-operative banks, company service providers, a wider category of credit providers, high-value goods dealers, the South African Mint Company, crypto asset service providers, informal money or value transfer providers (including hawaladars), and payment clearing system participants.
All sectors that fall under these items are required to register with the FIC. In addition to registering with the FIC, accountable institutions must fulfil certain regulatory obligations. These include implementing customer identification and verification, customer due diligence, appointing a compliance officer, training employees on FIC Act compliance and money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing (ML/TF/PF) risk exposure, undertaking business risk assessments for ML/TF/PF, and maintaining and implementing a risk management and compliance programme.
Accountable institutions must also file regulatory reports relating to suspicious and unusual transactions, cash transactions exceeding the prescribed threshold and on property that is linked to sanctioned persons, terrorist activity or terrorist organisations.
Accountable institutions are reminded that the failure to register with the FIC or to update registration information when it has changed constitutes non-compliance in terms of section 61A of the FIC Act.
Supervisors may impose administrative sanctions for the non-compliance with the registration requirement, which may include a financial penalty not exceeding R10 million in respect of natural persons and R50 million in respect of any legal person.
Registration is free and must be submitted electronically on the FIC website.
For more information and guidance refer to the FIC website, www.fic.gov.za, for various guidance notes and public compliance communications.
Alternatively, contact the FIC’s compliance contact centre on +27 12 641 6000 or log an online compliance query on the FIC website.