ISLAMABAD: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has revised its Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Regulations in a bid to updating them with the latest company law namely Companies Act 2017. The central bank has issued a circular to all banks and development finance institutions (DFIs) to obtain documents and information from the companies under the revised and updated AML/CFT Regulations.
Previous requirements for the account opening companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) were linked to Companies Ordinance 1984. Now the banks and the DFIs will be asked to obtain specific documents from the companies as per the Companies Act 2017.
Under the revised regulations, banks and DFIs would be required to obtain a resolution of the board of director for opening of account specifying the person(s) authorised to open and operate the account. This requirement would not be applicable for Single Member Company (SMC) registered with the SECP. Companies, in order to open account with a bank or establishing banking relations, would also have to submit memorandum of association, articles of association (wherever applicable), and certificate of incorporation. The companies would also have to submit the SECP registered declaration of commencement of business as required under the Companies Act 2017 in addition to list of directors to be filed under the same act. Earlier, the SBP had amended the AML/CFT Regulations in June last based on National Risk Assessment, which it had conducted in collaboration with stakeholders, ministries, law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies and financial monitoring unit. All banks and DFIs are required to complete their internal risk review by December 31, 2017 as per the June Amendments, besides bringing all related policies and procedures on a par with the latest amendment.
Published in Daily Times, November 20th 2017.
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