The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has been reviewing the anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regulatory requirements for banks, including the address verification requirements stipulated in the current AML Guideline and concluded to remove the address verification requirements. As a result, banks are only required to collect address information of customers and/or beneficial owners without the need to collect documentary evidence for AML/CFT purpose.
This amendment is expected to be gazetted in 2018 together
with the amendments resulting from the Anti-Money Laundering and
Counter-Terrorist Financing (Financial Institutions) (Amendment) Bill 2017 (the
Bill).
In the meantime, any absence of verification of address will
be regarded as justified and the HKMA called on Financial Institutions (FI) to
start reviewing and to adopt the changes as soon as it is practicable to do so.
The old and new KYC requirements are summarized below:
Old
An FI should obtain and verify the following information in
relation to a customer which is a corporation:
(a) full name;
(b) date and place of incorporation;
(c) registration or incorporation number; and
(d) registered office address in the place of incorporation.
If the business address of the customer is different from the registered office address in (d) above, the FI should obtain information on the business address and verify as far as practicable.
FIs should verify the company’s registered office address in the place of incorporation.
For beneficial owners, FIs should obtain the residential address (and permanent address if different) and may adopt a risk-based approach to determine the need to take reasonable measures to verify the address, taking account of the number of beneficial owners, the nature and distribution of the interests in the entity and the nature and extent of any business, contractual or family relationship.
New
FIs are required to collect the registered address and principal place of business.
To be repealed.
FIs are required to collect the residential address of beneficial owners.
Here To Help
Encore Professional Services Limited assists clients with the document preparation and appointment arrangement for a bank account opening. Contact us for more information.