Handbook on Countering Financial Crime and Terrorist Financing
1st November 2019The Commission has today issued, in final form, the revised Handbook on Countering Financial Crime and Terrorist Financing ("the Handbook").
The Commission has revised the Handbook, in order to allow firms to advance work on revising their business risk assessments and policies, procedures and controls to take account of the provisions of Schedule 3 and the rules and guidance in the Handbook without delay. As a result of consultation feedback, rather than prescribe individual dates by when a firm must revise its business risk assessments and policies, procedures and controls, firms will have one overarching deadline of 31 May 2020 to revise and obtain Board approval of their business risk assessments and to update and obtain Board approval of their policies, procedures and controls. This change from our original consultation proposal of 29 February 2020 for revising business risk assessments and 31 May 2020 for policies, procedures and controls, will provide firms with the flexibility to determine the optimal timeframes for reviewing, revising and obtaining board approval for these documents before the 31 May 2020 deadline.
Rules 17.8 and 17.11 have also been amended to clarify that a firm should consider the conclusions of the National Risk Assessment when its business risk assessments and policies, procedures and controls next fall due for review after 31 May 2020 in accordance with the provisions of Paragraphs 3(1) and 3(6) of Schedule 3.
The revised Handbook, including the rules and guidance contained therein, comes into effect on 1 November 2019.
A clean version of the Handbook, together with a tracked version reflecting the changes made from the version published 13 June 2019, can be accessed via: