Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing

The supervision of anti-money laundering by the FIN-FSA follows a risk-based approach. The supervision strategy also covers the prevention of terrorist financing and compliance with financial sanctions. The objective of the strategy is to describe the most important sectors of supervised entities and their respective ways of supervision. At the same time, it is important to note that any supervised entity may become subject to any supervision measure if signs of shortcomings concerning AML obligations are detected in its activities. The strategy is in effect until further notice, and its contents will be reviewed on an annual basis.

The entities we supervise are obliged to know their customers’ business, detect and examine suspicious transactions, and report any such suspicions to the FIN-FSA and the Financial Intelligence Unit. This directory contains instructions for supervised entities on customer due diligence and the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.

The prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing is based on international standards. Regulation seeks to ensure that uniform customer due diligence procedures are observed in the global financial markets. In this respect, an important role is played by the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), an intergovernmental working group on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, operating under the OECD. The EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Directives are based on FATF recommendations.

In Finland, the Financial Intelligence Unit operating in connection with the National Bureau of Investigation processes money-laundering reports submitted to it. Responsibility for the development of anti-money laundering legislation lies with the Ministry of Finance. It is our task to ensure that the procedures, risk management and internal control of supervised entities comply with statutory requirements.

A supervised entity or its employee may be sentenced to punishment for failure to comply with the obligations of customer due diligence and prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing under the Act on Detecting and Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Anti-Money Laundering Act, AML Act). A supervised entity may be guilty of negligent money laundering, for example, if it assists or counsels a customer in investment activities, establishment of shell companies or transfer of funds despite having weighty reasons to be suspicious of the customer's transactions.

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