The draft regulations, which will transpose the EU’s Fourth Money Laundering Directive, will alter the approach to customer due diligence, seek to prevent new means of terrorist financing including through e-money and prepaid cards, improve transparency of beneficial ownership of companies and trusts, and effectively enforce sanctions.
These International standards will ensure that there are controls and procedures in place to combat the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing across a number of sectors including estate agency.
EU Referendum
Despite the UK’s decision to leave the EU on 23 June, the Government have confirmed that until exit negotiations are concluded, the UK remains a full member of the European Union and all the rights and obligations of EU membership remain in force.
General Election
The domestic implementation of these new anti-money laundering provisions involves an incredibly tight schedule. On 12 April this year the UK government ended its consultation on the draft regulations on tackling money laundering. There is currently no date for when the final version of these regulations will be issued, but we do know that they will be in force by 26 June this year.