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Article (12) Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Illicit Organizations

C 15/2021 Effective from 6/6/2021
  1. Payment Service Providers must comply with the relevant UAE AML Laws and Regulations and address money laundering and terrorist financing risks through appropriate preventive measures to deter abuse of the sector as a conduit for illicit funds, and detect money laundering and terrorist financing activities and report any suspicious transactions to the Financial Intelligence Department at the Central Bank.
     
  2. Payment Service Providers must have comprehensive and effective internal AML/CFT policies, procedures and controls in place. Payment Service Providers shall be prohibited from invoking banking, professional or contractual secrecy as a pretext for refusing to perform their statutory reporting obligation in regard to suspicious activity.
     
  3. Payment Service Providers must identify, assess, and understand the ML/FT risks to which they are exposed and conduct enterprise-level and business relationship-specific risk assessments. Accordingly, all AML/CFT CDD, monitoring and controls must be risk-based and aligned to the risk assessments.
     
  4. Payment Service Providers shall undertake periodic risk profiling of Retail Payment Service Users and assessment based on the AML/CFT requirements.
     
  5. Payment Service Providers shall assess whether a business relationship presents a higher money laundering and terrorist financing risk and assign a related risk rating. Payment Service Providers shall be prohibited from dealing in any way with shell banks or other shell financial institutions and from establishing or maintaining any business relationship or conducting any Payment Transaction under an anonymous or fictitious name or by pseudonym or number.
     
  6. Payment Service Providers shall ensure that their CDD models are designed to address the specific risks posed by a Retail Payment Service User profile and Payment Instrument features. Payment Service Providers shall be prohibited from establishing or maintaining any business relationship or executing any Payment Transaction in the event that they are unable to complete adequate risk-based CDD measures for any reason.
     
  7. Payment Service Providers providing Retail Payment Services must undertake certain CDD measures concerning Wire Transfers as stipulated in the relevant provisions of the AML Law if Wire Transfer services are provided by Payment Service Providers. Payment Service Providers should introduce appropriate systems for screening, as part of the CDD process, on all parties involved in a transaction against all applicable sanction lists (i.e. the UN sanction lists and the names contained in the ‘search notices’/’search and freeze notices’ issued by the Central Bank).
     
  8. If Payment Service Providers provide the service of Wire Transfers, they should take freezing action and prohibit conducting transactions with designated persons and entities, as per the obligations set out in the Central Bank’s Notice 103/2020 on the Implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the UAE Cabinet Resolutions regarding UNSC and Local Lists, as amended from time to time.
     
  9. Payment Service Providers should also be guided by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Standards on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism and proliferation. Payment Service Providers should incorporate the regular review of ML/FT trends and typologies into their compliance training programmes as well as into their risk identification and assessment procedures.