Coming into force from March 1, the Anti-Money Laundering Law is available on Official Gazette Nos 139-141 of 2022, with 66 articles arranged in four chapters, and contains several significant changes compared to its 2012 version.
Accordingly, the 2022 Law adds payment intermediary service providers as reporting entities, and empowers the Government to specify emerging activities that are exposed to money laundering risks of reporting entities other than those specified in this Law after obtaining the consent of the National Assembly Standing Committee.
As required by the Law, reporting entities will have to assess their money laundering risks and develop a process of management of money laundering risks. Such process must state the classification of customers based on their risk levels, including low risk, medium risk and high risk, and applicable measures in response to money laundering risk levels of customers.
Regarding customer identification, the Law contains more specific regulations on KYC information; permits reporting entities to exploit information from national databases for collation and verification of information provided by customers; and supplements provisions on conducting KYC activities through third parties and hiring other organizations to verify KYC information.
The Law additionally provides for foreign politically exposed persons of international organizations, and defines responsibility of reporting entities for taking appropriate measures to verify origin of assets of customers and beneficial owners who are politically exposed foreigners and supervising business relationships throughout the course of conducting transactions with such customers.- (VLLF)