In May and June, we hosted the AUSTRAC Reporting Entity Forum, a series of webinars tailored to businesses we currently regulate. These sessions focused on sharing insights from our regulatory activities.

Attendees heard directly from us on a range of topics including:

• insights from our regulatory supervision and our enforcement teams
• key themes from the 2024 Compliance Report
• an update on the reforms to Australia's Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) regime.

The forum was very well attended, with over 2,881 reporting entities attending.

National Manager Education and Industry Engagement, Dr Rochelle Hurst, said “It’s been great to see such strong engagement. Industry’s participation shows a real commitment to AML/CTF compliance and a willingness to work with AUSTRAC. The insights shared will be invaluable in guiding our future focus and strengthening our collective efforts.”

Common compliance issues discussed in the webinars included:

• generic and outdated ML/TF risk assessments
• enhanced customer due diligence (ECDD) not being applied, despite the presence of high-risk customers
• poor governance and oversight when outsourcing AML/CTF functions.

We also shared issues we have observed in reporting, including: 

• incomplete suspicious matter reports, or reports that were delayed
• incomplete or inaccurate threshold transaction reports
• failure to report when required.

Daniel Rule, General Manager at Endeavour Group, said "it was very powerful to hear from AUSTRAC on the industry specific risks you are observing and what we should be considering. It shows a real shift in AUSTRAC's approach to outreach and my team really enjoyed the session.”

More information

If you weren’t able to attend the webinar for your sector you can now watch the recordings on our YouTube channel.