Anti-Money Laundering: Know Your Customer quick reference guide

Understanding global KYC differences

April 2012

Combating Money Laundering continues to be a key issue for many businesses. Tackling the complex international patchwork of regulatory and legal requirements, while continuing to serve clients locally, is challenging. The financial services sector faces significant reputational damage and potentially large fines if adequate controls do not exist. Around the world, regulators are taking an increasingly aggressive stance on failures in this area.

Quick and easy access to global Anti-Money Laundering (‘AML’) and ‘Know Your Customer’ (‘KYC’) information is helpful to mitigating risk. In response, we have developed a Know Your Customer quick reference guide. It incorporates the main local AML requirements for over 70 different countries.

In addition to new countries being included in the 2012 Know Your Customer quick reference guide, there are also additional questions on the topic of reporting requirements. These include details of whom to report suspicious activity to within the various territories, reporting obligations and any penalties for non compliance.

The guide details many regulatory and other cultural issues which need to be addressed when doing business across territories. Useful links to Financial Action Task Force (‘FATF’) reports and country evaluations are also included.

Information about whether local regulators support the use of the risk based approach to AML; how to deal with Politically Exposed Persons (‘PEPs’) and whether doing business with shell banks is prohibited can all be found in our guide.

From time to time, you may need expert advice from AML specialists. We’ve included details of the appropriate PwC AML professionals in the countries featured. They would be happy to discuss any AML issues you might have.

To access the information about a particular country, please click on the pdf link below.