WSBI-ESBG shares its position on the draft FATF Guidance on the transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons

The FATF Recommendations set out global AML/CFT measures and should be implemented by countries in the best way possible according to their legal, administrative and operational frameworks. The first batch of FATF Recommendations were published in 1990 and lastly updated in 2012. They are complemented by their Interpretive Notes and a Glossary of definitions.

The FATF Recommendation 24 (R.24) addresses the transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons. Inter alia, R.24 provides advice on preventing the risks of misuse of legal persons for ML/TF, prohibiting legal persons to issue new bearer shares or bearer share warrants, and to take measures against the misuse of nominee shareholders and directors. Moreover, the access to beneficial ownership and control information by financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions should be facilitated when meeting certain requirements.

In our response to the consultation, WSBI-ESBG asks for the following:
• Harmonisation of the rules on identifying senior managing officials when a beneficial owner cannot be identified;
• Verification of company registers by national authorities to foster the reliability of their information;
• Establishing an international beneficial owner register to be used by obligated parties in fulfilling their due diligence obligation;
• Creating a list of stock exchanges, that hold information of listed companies to be used for beneficial ownership obligations;
• Making the tax identification number as accessible as appropriate, in case it will be deemed as a necessary KYC-information;
• Permitting the exchange of beneficial ownership information within the same group of banks and between banks.