Handbook on Countering Financial Crime and Terrorist Financing

The Commission has today, issued in final form, the revised Handbook on Countering Financial Crime and Terrorist Financing (“the Handbook”).

The Commission has made these amendments, to the Handbook, in order to take into account the Bailiwick of Guernsey’s National Risk Assessment (“NRA”) on money laundering (“ML”) and the financing of terrorism (“FT”) which was published in January 2020. These changes will assist firms in identifying high risk countries and territories for both ML and FT purposes. In particular, the Commission has created two new appendices: -

• Appendix H, which lists those countries and territories which the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) has identified with significant strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter ML, FT and financing of proliferation for which it has called for the application of countermeasures.

• Appendix I, which lists a number of countries and territories that are identified by the UK and US governments, intergovernmental and supranational organisations such as the FATF as presenting certain ML and FT risks. Alongside these sources, information is presented reflecting assessments of a country or territory by non-governmental organisations and think tanks which firms may also find useful when they are determining the level of country risk presented by a business relationship or occasional transaction. 

The FATF usually updates its lists 3 times per year, and the Commission will amend Appendices H and I shortly after each FATF update. We will issue a notice of any changes and highlight those jurisdictions which have been added and/or removed from the relevant appendix. This notice will replace the Business From Sensitive Sources Notices. Accordingly, Instruction (Number 01/2020) has been repealed as at 19 June 2020. Appendices H and I can be viewed here.

Nick Herquin, our Deputy Director of the Financial Crime Division, has summarised the key changes to the Handbook in this short clip.

The revised Handbook, including the rules and guidance contained therein, comes into effect on 19 June 2020.

A clean version of the Handbook, together with a tracked version reflecting the changes made from the Handbook published on 29 April 2020, can be accessed here.