“Central”: related to countering money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism
New guidelines for real estate financial institutions and traders of precious metals and gemstones
Khaled Balama: “Ensuring that financial institutions understand their role in mitigating the risks of illegal activities is an important aspect of our work.”
The Central Bank issued new guidelines on countering money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism for licensed financial institutions that provide services to the real estate sector and traders of precious metals and gemstones.
The new guidelines, which entered into force on June 20, contribute to understanding and mitigating risks, in addition to ensuring effective implementation by authorized financial institutions of their legal obligations related to combating money laundering and combating terrorist financing.
The guidelines were drawn up based on Federal Decree Law No. (20) of 2018, regarding countering money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism, and Cabinet Resolution No. (10) of 2019, and these guidelines take into account the standards and directives issued by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
As stipulated in the guidelines relating to all customer dealings, authorized financial institutions are required to conduct customer due diligence procedures, and report any behavior they suspect may be related to money laundering, terrorist financing or any criminal offense, by submitting suspicious activity reports directly to the Unit Financial information in the UAE using the “goAML” portal.
In addition, licensed financial institutions, which provide their services to the real estate sector and traders of precious metals and gemstones in particular, must work on assessing the relevant money laundering and terrorist financing risks, and develop an effective program to combat them, including appointing a qualified compliance officer, and training financial institution employees to deal with them. With the mentioned risks.
Central Bank Governor Khalid Mohammed Salem Balama Al-Tamimi said, "Ensuring that all licensed financial institutions understand their role in mitigating and addressing the risks of illegal activities in the UAE's financial system is an important aspect of our work at the Central Bank."
He explained that "the new guidelines are an essential reference for workers providing services to the real estate sector and traders of precious metals and gemstones, as they were prepared to increase the effectiveness of licensed financial institutions to contribute to the strenuous national efforts to confront money laundering and combat the financing of terrorism."
It is noteworthy that agents, real estate brokers and dealers of precious metals and gemstones who are qualified to work in the designated non-financial professions, are subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Economy, which is the body that issues the relevant guidelines.
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