Customers

Some entities have a reporting obligation by virtue of the Anti-Money Laundering Act. When you carry out a transaction with such an entity, you may have to prove your identity. This way, the obliged entity can ensure it knows the person it is interacting with. This is known as customer due diligence. The obliged entities, such as banks, follow statutory procedures for customer due diligence and monitor their customer relationships in order to detect suspicious business activities.

In order for the obliged entity to know you, you must supply it with the necessary, up-to-date and correct information. The obliged entities have the right to decide by themselves the questions they ask their customers in the customer due diligence process. However, the pieces of information have to be necessary and critical for the establishing and maintenance of a customer relationship. The obligations associated with customer due diligence and verification of identity also apply to the identification of beneficial owners.

The sectors in which customer due diligence measures have to be followed are listed in the Anti-Money Laundering Act. Customer due diligence must be followed, for example, in banking and insurance business, real estate agency, auditing, tax advice services, recovery operations, provision of legal services, gambling operations, currency exchange operations and sales of works of art.

The customer due diligence measures for obliged entities are:

  • identifying the customer and verifying their identity

  • identifying the beneficial owners of a corporate customer (determining whether the beneficial owner has more than 25% of ownership and control) and verification of identity if necessary

  • identifying the customer’s representative and verifying their identity

  • obtaining information on the customer’s operations, the nature and scope of their business activities and their justification for using the service or product

  • storing the identifying information

  • obligation to investigate and report a suspicious business transaction

If you do not provide the necessary identifying information for the obliged entity, it might impact your possibility to use the entity’s services.

The obliged entity must inform you clearly on which pieces of information will be asked for and for which purpose they will be used. Personal data that has been obtained solely for purposes referred to in the Anti-Money Laundering Act may not be used for marketing.