The Compliance Officer must prepare Bi-Annual Compliance Reports (i.e. reports for the six (6) month periods ending on 30th June and 31st December of the respective financial year) in order to assess the effectiveness of the Licensed Person’s AML/CFT policies, procedures, systems and controls to prevent M//TF.
16.30.2
Bi-Annual Compliance Reports must be submitted within one (1) month from the end of each reporting period to:
a)
the Compliance Committee; and
b)
the Board of Directors (or the Owner/Partners where there is no Board of Directors).
16.30.3
Bi-Annual Compliance Reports must cover at least the following:
a)
Assessment of ML/FT risks associated with the business of the Licensed Person and the effectiveness of its policies, procedures, systems and controls;
b)
Summary of the gap analysis between the AML/CFT Program of the Licensed Person and existing AML Laws, Regulations, Notices and the Standards as well as the actions taken by the Compliance Officer to bridge or resolve such gaps;
c)
Details of AML/CFT breaches highlighted in the most recent Central Bank examination report and the reports by Internal/External Auditors;
d)
The number of internal suspicious disclosures made by employees and the number of cases investigated, closed, kept open for future monitoring or reported to the FIU as STRs during the reporting period;
e)
The number of suspicious transactions detected and reported to the FIU via independent transaction monitoring by the Compliance Officer during the reporting period;
f)
Changes in the AML/CFT policies and procedures reviewed and the details of any AML/CFT policy or procedures newly introduced during the reporting period;
g)
Statistics on total employees, new joiners during the reporting period, number of employees trained and the number of employees not trained (if any) including reasons for not training employees;
h)
Areas where the AML/CFT training programme must be improved and proposals made to enhance the training;
i)
Recommendations to the Manager in Charge and the Board of Directors (or to the Owner/Partners where there is no Board of Directors) for the improvement of the AML/CFT function of the Licensed Person;
j)
Details of Compliance Officer’s requests for additional human resources, systems, controls, tools and technology changes for the attention of the Board of Directors (or of the Owner/Partners where there is no Board of Directors);
k)
An action plan to improve the AML/CFT compliance function for the next six (6) months along with the current status of similar action plan for previous six (6) months; and
l)
The conclusion of the Compliance Officer about the effectiveness of the existing AML/CFT function of the Licensed Person.
16.30.4
The Bi-Annual Compliance Report must be approved by the Board of Directors (or by the Owner/Partners where there is no Board of Directors).
16.30.5
A copy of the Bi-Annual Compliance Report must be submitted to the Banking Supervision Department and the AML/CFT Supervision Department via email respectively to info.ehs@cbuae.gov.ae and amlcft@cbuae.gov.ae along with comments from the Board of Directors (or from the Owner/Partners where there is no Board of Directors) within four (4) months from the end of each reporting period.