Photo for illustrative purposes only. ARCHIVE

The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) announced on Thursday that it had updated its anti-money laundering and countering the funding of terrorism (AML/CFT) guidelines for businesses in the insurance sector, including insurance and reinsurance companies, agents, and brokers. The immediate-take-effect guidance, which incorporates Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, will help licensed financial institutions (LFIs) understand risks and effectively carry out their statutory AML/CFT obligations. Within a month, compliance with the rules is required. It discusses the money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) risks pertinent to life insurance and other investment-related insurance products. The preventive steps insurance operators can take to identify, assess, manage, and mitigate these risks. Insurance operators must conduct, document, and update enterprise risk assessments. The Central Bank stated that the companies are required to carry out customer due diligence, comprehend the nature of the customer's business, and the nature and purpose of the operator's relationship with the customer, including the regular uses to which the customer will put the operator's products or services, and subject all customers to ongoing monitoring throughout the business relationship. Additionally, the operators must take extra precautions if they find a client or relationship that poses a higher risk for money laundering or terrorist financing. In addition, the regulator advised insurance operators to keep transaction monitoring systems ready to spot patterns of activity that seem out of the ordinary and possibly suspicious. They should also report any behavior they believe may be connected to money laundering or terrorist financing (ML/TF), or a criminal offense by sending suspicious activity or transaction reports directly to the UAE's Financial Intelligence Unit using the "goAML" portal, the regulator advised. BKM/ Expat Media
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