I am registered through HMRC for MLR as I'm not a full member yet for AAT (still a student), anyway about 3 months ago I had an external agency rang me up asking to do a survey on HMRC money Laundering, anyway answered loads of questions, and to be honest alot weren't relevent to my business. Int he post today I have been sent a letter by HMRC, saying that the 'Central Intervention Team' can help with any queries I may have. I have never had a problem with any client and nor have I ever reported anyone!
Anyway to cut a loong story short at the bottom of the letter it has asked me to fill in another questionaire, very simple one about where the business is how many clients do I have, main business activity, any businesses that are regisitered abroad etc? All my clients are either small slef-employed or small LTD companies all registered in the UK. They are asking that if I have a risk assessment in place please can I send a copy to them and also if I have a policy in place please send them a copy of the letter. It is their recommendations for a risk assessment to be in place, now after all of this has anyone get a parcific 'risk assessment' letter I could pinch and adapt it to me???
I already have a 'Letter of engagement' which cleary states that I need to see ID and a utility Bill to prove who they are and it says its to do with the MLR regs that are currently in place. Is that all they want along with the questionaire or is it best to elaborate on that Letter of enagement and add some more on it or shall I do a separate 'Risk Assessment' one as well. Not really sure where to start as I was happy with whats in place and know all off my clients really and there is no suspect activities with any of them. So why have I received this letter out of the blue?........
Any information will be gratefully received as not really sure what else to do? I have to respond within 30 days so would like to do it ASAP. Has anyone else had a letter?
Many thanks
-- Edited by Amanda on Saturday 4th of June 2011 04:37:52 PM
The AAT money maundering guidance provides a general pro forma for your risk assessment recording.
See page 16 / 17 of this document : http://www.aat.org.uk/servlet/file/ML%20Guidance%202008.pdf?ITEM_ENT_ID=96599&COLLSPEC_ENT_ID=187
There are more forms than that though, what about where you have a suspicion. Do you have all of your internal forms and logs in place for that? Have HMRC started asking about this part of your internal processes yet? If not, take the opportunity to get ahead and develop your internal money laundering suspicion report, MLRO controls report and your log of issues.
I assume that would all be available in the AAT members area but I'm not in the club unfortunately so don't have access to find out. If the forms are not available there then the above link is a good start for knowing what you need but with the exception of the risk assessment form it's a bit short on example forms.
Hope that this helps for starters,
Shaun.
p.s. edited because my spelling gets even worse after midnight.
-- Edited by Shamus on Monday 6th of June 2011 01:59:25 AM
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks Shaun, I didn't think you were ignoring me.
They haven't asked about any internal forms etc, all it says on the letter is, 'if you can demonstrate via such documentation that you have given proper consideration to you obigations then we may not need to call you'. I will have a good read of your link and come up with a letter of some sort. God I hate writing letters, I'm more a numbers person!
Basically they are just asking for a policy statement to be prepared and a risk assessment. Has anyone else been contacted by them, or indeed have this type of documentation in place? Like I said previously it does state about the id etc in my 'Letter of Engagement'. I always worry when its HMRC, look at the lady on the other topic who is being investigated and been harrassed by them, its not nice. Surely they should be after the larger practices, after all its only me on my own and I don't exactly have really large clients, or businesses that are registered abroad.
Many thanks
PS glad I wasn't the only one up that time of night, I was just off to bed! There are quite a few of us on here who are night hawks.
-- Edited by Amanda on Monday 6th of June 2011 10:08:36 AM
one of the good things about the ICB is that they send you a nice binder with all of the money laundering forms and info in it.
Until I receieved that I had pretty much thought of Money Laundering along the lines of something else that you need to register for and pay lip service to. But when you see all of the procedures in a binder like that you realise that this is actually a full proper set of procedures that you need to maintain.
As you've gone direct to HMRC to supervise you I can see that they are going to expect you to have procedures similar to those of the ICB in place to manage your MLR commitments.
In the first instance that would be the risk assessment form which you can get from the AAT guidance.
After that you need to have your process in place for what to do if you encounter suspicious behavior. That's going to incorporate recording the suspicious behavior, keeping a log of all reports and keeping a record of what was done by you in relation to the suspicious behavior.
I think that all of the steps that you need to take are detailed in the AAT guidance but they don't supply many of the forms that the ICB do unless they are hiding them in the members only area that I don't have access to.
Hope that helps with clarifying the sort of thing that HMRC are looking for from you.
Sounds worse than it is and the main form is definitely that risk assessment form. Just be aware that as they are looking after you they will also want you to have formal procedures in place for your business re money laundering. (the same as the ICB, IAB or AAT would if you were under them for your supervision).
On the night owl front. It seems as though I study best then as when I wake the next morning I can normally remember the studies from the night before as though I've been thinking it through in my sleep whereas if I study during the day it seems that by the next day I will have forgotten it.... Or at least not know where in my head it's hiding as when I re-read the subject it's obvious that I know it I just couldn't answer questions on it.
Anyway, generally I log onto the site to check messages before going to bed and then writing the replies wakes me up enough to do a bit more studying! Just recently it's actually been the first birds singing in the morning that have let me know that it's time to stop studying and go to bed!!! The fun of single parenting and accountancy qualification eh. Definitely not a combination that I would recommend.
Talk later,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Basically the risk assessment document is a some sort of form (no special format) that is a list of things to look out for, and ranking them all together to give you an idea if the client is low to high risk for potential money laundering activity.
Looks like thats my day taken car of. The thing is I do the checks on my clients ID etc but to be honest they are all very good and I have NO suspicions at all so don't need to do anything with them. Maybe I have just got a really good bunch of clients at the mo (touch wood).
there are bits and bobs in the rules that we just don't need but I can see their point in that we should have them in place anyway in case we ever did.
One that I find ammusing is the annual staff MLR training record that seems to be a requirement even when you are the only person in the company.
If you think that this is bad though. On occassion I work with several different financial intitutions at the same time and to keep everything straight internally I have to sit through and do the internal exam for MLR training for every one that I work with as they all refuse to accept that such has already been done with another institution or even that you are covered for it individually.
Also have to sit through the safety in the workplace DVDs but don't mind those as at least people tripping over cables and falling off desks is always good for a laugh.... What do you mean that's not the point of those DVDs!
Have you ever had to face one of the how to sit on a chair properly DVD's... The only ammusing thing associated with that is that someone makes a living making this (expletive deleted).
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I would still do a risk assessment for your clients, that way you are covering yourself. the ID checks are fine, what they are looking for is the potential for your client to launder money. All you are doing is rating them for potential. It's just a judgement call that you have documented
If you get a client that was refered to you, deals mainly in cash, whose day job is a Rear Admiral in the navy, then he would be a high risk client. It does not change the way you deal with them but you would pay more attention some of the transactions they make.
If on the other hand, if your client sells petfood on the internet, only takes PayPal payments, it is their only source of income, and you have known them since infant school, they would probably be low risk.
Bill
-- Edited by Wella on Monday 6th of June 2011 12:15:39 PM
This is when being a member of an ML approved organisation is useful, as you would be able to get examples of everything you need from your professional body!
It's been really interesting reading about your issues - I'm just about to register for my supervision licence via ICB as I'm studying via home learning. But I really need is a Letter of Engagement - do you have something that I could use by any chance please?
I will keep watching the emails regarding your situation as it's always helpful to be prepared just incase of a similar situation.
