3 March 2021: A shared understanding between law enforcement, supervisory bodies and firms of money laundering and terrorist financing risks is crucial to ensuring firms recognise when they are at risk of being used to facilitate money laundering.
The ways in which criminals operate are constantly evolving. By maintaining awareness and applying professional scepticism, accountants can be more effective in identifying and reporting a suspicious activity when it arises.
Following on from instalment two of the IFAC series, ‘A Risk-Based Approach’, several key resources have been published which should inform firm-wide risk assessments. These include the National Risk Assessment (NRA) of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. The NRA assessment is a stock-take of the UK s collective knowledge of money laundering and terrorist financing risks in the UK. It concludes that the risk accountancy service providers could be used to facilitate money laundering is high.