Monetary Authority of Singapore Targets TMF Trustees
MAS imposes SGD $400,000 fine on TMF Trustees Singapore for failure to comply with AML and CTF requirements for trust companies
What Happened?
March 19, 2020: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has imposed a SGD$400,000 penalty on TMF Trustees Singapore for failing to adhere to MAS’ requirements for Anti-money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CTF) monitoring.
Who Is Impacted?
Settlors of trusts, small businesses, corporations, and financial institutions (especially those that do business in Singapore and Southeast Asia)
Why This Matters?
TMF Trustees failed to meet MAS’ requirements for trust companies between June 2011 and April 2018 by neglecting to obtain and adequately verify the source of wealth reports from settlors of various trusts and instead relying on the settlors’ own source of wealth or simple bank reference letters.
In addition, the company did not maintain proper ongoing monitoring of all trust-relevant transactions and failed to scrutinize these transactions for risk profiles and suspicious activities–exposing TMF to greater risks of becoming an avenue for money laundering and financing of terrorism.
What’s Next?
TMF Trustees Singapore has remitted payment for the fine in full and has promptly taken a number of steps to remediate the address flaws in their back-office processes to ensure AML and CTF monitoring adheres to MAS guidelines going forward. These include voluntarily declining new trust customers for at least three months and strengthening their governance and internal controls to prevent future breaches.
This case is a timely reminder to financial institutions involved in setting up these structures or dealing with customers who use such vehicles, to have in place robust controls to prevent them from being misused for money laundering and terrorism financing.
– Loo Siew Yee, MAS: Policy, Payments and Financial Crime
Companies should take this as an opportunity to review and revise their internal controls to align with their local AML and CTF requirements, in order to maintain robust governance and monitoring processes.
These ongoing monitoring programs are required–existing users should be regularly screened for global sanctions, watchlists, adverse media risks, and whether they represent political exposure.
Intelligent ongoing monitoring tools perform these tasks in real-time, daily assessing each client, and providing alerts when potential new risk is identified. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can be trained to better screen new risks for false positives, improving your firm’s capacity and ability to effectively manage the risks of money laundering, terrorist financing, and other illegal activities.
learn more
Is your AML compliance too expensive, time-consuming, or ineffective?
iComply enables financial services providers to reduce costs, risk, and complexity and improve staff capacity, effectiveness, and customer experience.
Request a demo today.
Centralized Digital Identity and ID “Phone Home” Privacy Alarms
As digital ID systems expand globally, centralised platforms like One Login and Aadhaar raise major concerns about privacy, data security, and surveillance. This article explores the risks of identity systems that phone home and how iComply’s decentralised identity verification solution offers a more secure and compliant path forward.
How to Do a KYC Refresh the Right Way
KYC refresh is a critical part of ongoing due diligence. This guide explains how to build an efficient, risk-based KYC refresh strategy using identity verification tools to improve compliance, customer experience, and operational performance.
Accelerating Ultimate Beneficial Ownership Discovery with KYB Compliance Software
Beneficial ownership discovery doesn’t need to be slow or manual. This article explores how firms can use advanced KYB software to comply with UBO requirements from AUSTRAC, FCA, FinCEN, and the EU AMLA – while improving customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
