Further information for obliged entities

Money laundering and terrorist financing can best be prevented when obliged entities comply with the Anti-Money Laundering Act. On this page you can find more up-to-date information on the obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering Act presented on the Obliged entities page.  Most of the texts and materials have been jointly prepared by supervisors. Also included are instructions produced by individual supervisors and these have been named separately.

Material jointly prepared by supervisors

Verifying customer’s identity

Verifying customer’s identity provides the basis for customer due diligence. Checking the documents used to verify the customer’s identity and ways to carry out an assessment in concrete verification situations are discussed in the documents below.

Verifying customer's identity

House Rules Customers Identity

Non-face-to-face identification

Non-face-to-face identification is an increasingly common method of customer identification and verification of identity. This document discusses the enhanced customer due diligence in connection with non-face-to-face, methods of non-face-to-face identification, non-face-to-face identification process and outsourcing the process.

Methods of non-face-to-face identification

Instructions issued by individual supervisors

Customer due diligence

Customer due diligence is a key obligation under the Anti-Money Laundering Act. Customer due diligence includes identification of the customer and the customer’s representative and verification of their identity, and identification and, if necessary, verification of the identity of the beneficial owner.

Obliged entities must obtain information on their customers’ activities, the nature and extent of their business operations and the grounds for the use of a service or product. Obliged entities must also retain their customer due diligence information for the period specified in the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

Updating customer due diligence information must be risk-based – unnecessary restrictions on services should be avoided (in Finnish, Financial Supervisory Authority)

Obligation to obtain information and to report

In accordance with the obligation to obtain information, obliged entities must always investigate unusual transactions carried out by their customers and their purpose. If, even after the investigation, the customer’s transaction seems suspicious, the obliged entity must report the transaction to the Financial Intelligence Unit.

Instructions on reporting suspicious transactions (Regional State Administrative Agency)

Instructions on the obligation to obtain information and to report (Financial Supervisory Authority)

The materials jointly prepared by the supervisors are of more general nature and thus, individual supervisors do not consider them as binding instructions. If you would like to get more detailed information about the matter, you should contact your own supervisor under the Anti-Money Laundering Act. The supervisors are listed on the Obliged entities page and their contact information on the Contact information page.