On 17 December 2018, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (Autoriteit Financiële Markten, AFM) published a news item on the outcome of its periodical investigation into investment firms and their compliance with the Act on the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism (Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en financiering van terrorisme, Wwft) and the Sanctions Act 1977 (Sanctiewet 1977, SW).

The AFM concluded that the requirements are not always fully complied with, partly due to insufficient knowledge. According to the AFM:

• core terms such as ‘client’ and ‘transactions’ are most of the time interpreted in a too restrictive manner;
• although the requirement to perform client due diligence is generally being observed, a regular review of the client’s risk profile is often not carried out;
• only half of the investment firms have training programmes covering the Wwft; and
• a quarter of the investment firms does not monitor client transactions or assess whether clients appear on the sanctions list.

The AFM will intensify their supervision for compliance with the Wwft and SW in the coming years by means of risk driven investigations. Among other things, the AFM will focus on the obligation to report unusual transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit and transaction monitoring.

View AFM’s news item (Dutch only), 17 December 2018.