Earlier this month, the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS), published its latest report on its efforts to tackle money laundering.
The report detailed that improvements had been made in the legal and accountancy professions, but professional body supervisors (PBS) were falling behind their peers. Thus, these areas need to do more to raise their standards.
In 2018, the OPBAS report revealed that 91% of relevant PBSs weren’t fully implementing a risk-based approach to their supervision. Fast forward 12 months and this has improved dramatically. Now only 14% of PBSs fall into this category.
The report also revealed that the governance surrounding anti-money laundering has also increased from the previous year. In 2018, 44% of PBSs lacked accountability for this work, whereas at the end of 2019 this dropped to zero. A fantastic achievement all round, and demonstrates the importance of this accountability.
Megan Butler, Executive Director of Supervision – Investment, Wholesale and Specialist, said:
“We are pleased to see that OPBAS’ work is leading to positive changes in how professional bodies oversee the fight against dirty money.
“But there is still work to do, and in 12 months’ time we expect to see even greater improvements in anti-money laundering measures.”
As with any report OPBAS did supply a number of recommendations where the current provisions could be improved, especially as at least 40% of PBSs weren’t complying in these areas. These include:
- More enforcement action where appropriate
- Better information and intelligence sharing
- Quality assurance of supervisory decision making
- Better internal staff training
The full impact of the anti-money laundering changes to supervision will be tested and documented in OPBAS’ 2020 report.
