Iceland
28th November 2019The Commission has today removed Iceland from Appendix C (Equivalent Jurisdictions) of the Handbook on Countering Financial Crime and Terrorist Financing and issued an instruction for all specified business to ensure that full customer due diligence has been applied to all existing business relationships connected to Iceland by 31 January 2020. This action follows the Financial Action Task Force’s recent public statement identifying strategic deficiencies in Iceland’s regime for tackling money laundering and terrorist financing. The Commission is taking these steps because it cannot consider, for the purposes of Appendix C, Iceland to be an equivalent jurisdiction with AML/CFT standards and supervision which meet the FATF Recommendations.
At the same time, Instruction No. 03/2019 updating the Business from Sensitive Sources notice is being issued to reflect the addition of Iceland together with Mongolia and Zimbabwe to Part B of the Instruction and removal of Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Tunisia. It replaces Instruction No. 02/2019 issued on 8 July 2019.
Further details on these instructions can be found within the instructions.
Copies of the Instructions can be accessed through the Financial Crime section of the Commission’s website and via the following links:
Instruction No. 03/2019 for Specified Businesses (BFSSN)