Latest news and updates

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is inviting feedback on draft guidance about proliferation financing risk, and on digital currencies and digital currency exchange providers, known internationally as virtual assets and virtual asset service providers.

As Australia’s financial intelligence unit (FIU), AUSTRAC works closely with our FIU counterparts overseas to strengthen skills, improve governance, increase compliance with international standards and develop important relationships.

One of the main focuses for our international engagement is protecting Australia and the Pacific region against money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) threats.

We recently released a financial crime guide to help you understand, identify and report suspicious financial activity to prevent fraud against the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

NDIS fraud has a serious impact on the Australian public and economy, by stealing directly from the pockets of Australians living with disability.

We recently updated the applicable customer identification procedures (ACIP) and ongoing customer due diligence resources, to help you strengthen these two important parts of your AML/CTF program.

Your ACIP and ongoing customer due diligence are critical to protecting your business and the community from serious and organised crime.

The updates include new guidance and example scenarios that will help you identify gaps in your customer identification, verification and ongoing customer due diligence processes.

A set of new guidance resources including a video animation, fact sheet and frequently asked questions on how to submit more effective suspicious matter reports (SMRs) is now available.

Submitting SMRs to AUSTRAC helps to protect the Australian community from money laundering, terrorism financing and other serious and organised crime.

Digital currency exchange (DCE) providers operating in Australia have been required to register with AUSTRAC since April 2018. Next month marks three years since the first digital currency exchanges started to register.

Renewing registration every three years is one of the key obligations for businesses on the Digital Currency Exchange Register (DCER) – under the AML/CTF Act they automatically expire after this period.  Renewing your registration helps to keep your business details with AUSTRAC correct, as well as ensures that registrations which are no longer needed are ended.

Throughout 2020 we saw a number of key areas where businesses could improve their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) compliance.

To help you review and strengthen your AML/CTF program, systems and controls, we’ve developed five new regulatory guides.

These guides cover key areas of AML/CTF compliance identified through our regulatory activity during 2020. Using the guides will help you continue to meet your AML/CTF compliance obligations and protect your business.

Governance: board and senior management oversight

Reforms have been made to strengthen Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.

In simpler times, a business front would suffice to make illegally acquired money appear legitimate. A chain of laundromats did the job for Al Capone and is the origin of the term ‘money laundering’.

Over time, criminals have turned to increasingly sophisticated methods to disguise the origins of dirty money and integrate it into the mainstream economy.

In trade-based money laundering (TBML), criminals take advantage of the size and complexity of international trade to transfer money between parties and evade authorities.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global group that sets international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) standards, has published two recent updates relating to international ML/TF risk.

The reports provide an update on jurisdictions which may pose a risk to the international financial system: