Property Collective
6 min read
How To Avoid The 3 Most Common AML Mistakes As A Real Estate Professional In New Zealand
Money laundering is when criminals use counterfeit transactions to “clean” or convert money gained by illegal means into legitimate assets. And of course, what better or bigger asset class to make this switch with!? You guessed it. Real estate. From January 1st 2019 all real estate agents have to comply with the new Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act. This Act helps protect you as an agent and your clients from fraudulent activity.
There are however a few pitfalls when it comes to meeting your obligations. Here we talk about three of the most common AML mistakes reporting entities in New Zealand make, and how to avoid them to stay compliant.
Our friends over at RealAML are experts in this field and offer a couple of handy tips to not only help you stay on the right side of the law but also help you to streamline your processes, saving you time and money.
To determine whether your customer or any beneficial owner is a PEP, you need to use an internationally recognised search tool (Google won't cut it). A PEP check is required as soon as practicable after you have established a business relationship or undertaken an occasional transaction. To save valuable time and optimise your workflow, use a tool like RealAML. Over 30 international watchlists are accessed through RealAML's QuickID + FaceMatch, QuickID, and stand-alone PEPCheck across 200+ countries.Making compliance easier and faster.
Confirming your customer's identity via electronic data sources is only half of the process. Would a stranger posing as you pass your online identity process if they knew your name, date of birth, and address? Unfortunately, the answer is most likely yes in most cases.
It’s also essential that you implement a method to link your customer to their claimed identity (biometrically or otherwise). Biometrics must be done in a technologically automated manner, and not manually by humans. FaceMatch, a biometric product from RealAML, matches a customer's photo on their driver licence or passport to a photo taken of them in real-time. In fact, they can even detect the presence of a real person behind the camera instead of a photograph of one.
Running an electronic identity check on a remote customer and then asking them to hold up their identity documents via Zoom is not compliant. In the same way, electronic identity checks of remote customers would be non-compliant, if you receive via email a photo of the customer holding up their ID document next to their face. By using RealAML's FaceMatch, you can have the confidence knowing you’ll meet your AML obligations and stay compliant.
Implementing efficient processes and using cutting edge tech tools into your real estate business to help you both stay compliant and keep yourself and your clients safe is easy and inexpensive. Streamlining your workflows means that you're not only reducing your administrative time but also ensuring that you're spending those precious hours on the things that really matter to your clients and ultimately your businesses success.
There are however a few pitfalls when it comes to meeting your obligations. Here we talk about three of the most common AML mistakes reporting entities in New Zealand make, and how to avoid them to stay compliant.
Our friends over at RealAML are experts in this field and offer a couple of handy tips to not only help you stay on the right side of the law but also help you to streamline your processes, saving you time and money.
1. Not conducting a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) check on every customer
To determine whether your customer or any beneficial owner is a PEP, you need to use an internationally recognised search tool (Google won't cut it). A PEP check is required as soon as practicable after you have established a business relationship or undertaken an occasional transaction. To save valuable time and optimise your workflow, use a tool like RealAML. Over 30 international watchlists are accessed through RealAML's QuickID + FaceMatch, QuickID, and stand-alone PEPCheck across 200+ countries.Making compliance easier and faster.
2. Not matching the customer you are dealing with remotely to their electronic identity check (i.e. are they the same person)
Confirming your customer's identity via electronic data sources is only half of the process. Would a stranger posing as you pass your online identity process if they knew your name, date of birth, and address? Unfortunately, the answer is most likely yes in most cases.
It’s also essential that you implement a method to link your customer to their claimed identity (biometrically or otherwise). Biometrics must be done in a technologically automated manner, and not manually by humans. FaceMatch, a biometric product from RealAML, matches a customer's photo on their driver licence or passport to a photo taken of them in real-time. In fact, they can even detect the presence of a real person behind the camera instead of a photograph of one.
3. Using video conferencing technology or ID selfies as a method to match the customer you are dealing with remotely to their electronic identity check
Running an electronic identity check on a remote customer and then asking them to hold up their identity documents via Zoom is not compliant. In the same way, electronic identity checks of remote customers would be non-compliant, if you receive via email a photo of the customer holding up their ID document next to their face. By using RealAML's FaceMatch, you can have the confidence knowing you’ll meet your AML obligations and stay compliant.
Implementing efficient processes and using cutting edge tech tools into your real estate business to help you both stay compliant and keep yourself and your clients safe is easy and inexpensive. Streamlining your workflows means that you're not only reducing your administrative time but also ensuring that you're spending those precious hours on the things that really matter to your clients and ultimately your businesses success.
