Coinance OÜ wishes to put in place the following anti-money laundering policy in order to prevent any of our services being used (or potentially used) for any money laundering activity, as well as any of our staff being exposed to money laundering.
The broad definition of money laundering means that potentially anyone could commit a money laundering offence, this includes all employees of the Company, all temporary staff and contractors.
Our policy is to enable the Company to meet its legal and regulatory requirements in a way which is proportionate to the nature of the business, by taking reasonable steps to minimise the likelihood of money laundering occurring.All employees must be familiar with their legal responsibilities, and failure to comply with this Policy may lead to disciplinary action.
The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) consolidated, updated and reformed criminal law with regard to money laundering.
Money laundering can be defined as the process to move illegally acquired cash through financial systems so that it appears to be from a legitimate source. Money laundering offences include: concealing, disguising, converting, transferring criminal property or removing it, entering into or becoming concerned in an arrangement which you know or suspect facilitates the acquisition, retention, use or control of criminal property by or on behalf of another person; and acquiring, using or possessing criminal property.
There are also several secondary offences, failure to disclose knowledge or suspicion of money laundering to the Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO); failure by the MLRO to disclose knowledge or suspicion of money laundering to the National Crime Agency; and ‘tipping off’ whereby somebody informs a person or persons who are, or who are suspected of being involved in money laundering, in such a way as to reduce the likelihood of their being investigated or prejudicing an investigation.
Any member of staff could potentially be caught by the money laundering provisions, if they suspect money laundering and either become involved with it in some way, and/or do nothing about it. This Policy sets out how any concerns should be raised.
Coinance will appoint a MLRO to receive disclosures about money laundering activity and be responsible for anti-money laundering activity within the Company. The officer nominated to do this is Alexander Razvadovskis.
The MLRO will ensure that appropriate training and awareness is provided to new and existing employees and that this is reviewed and updated as required. The MLRO will ensure that appropriate anti-money laundering systems and processes are incorporated by the Company.
The main activities of the MLRO comprise, but are not limited to, the following:
The MLRO is also required to produce reports for Board meetings including, but not limited to, the following items:
All Coinance employees, staff and contractors, must immediately report any suspicious activity to the MLRO in the prescribed form as set out in this policy document.
Once the matter has been reported to the MLRO, the employees must follow the directions given to them and must NOT make any further enquiry into the matter.
Coinance employees must NOT voice any suspicions to the client(s) whom they suspect of money laundering, as this may result in the commission of the offence of “tipping off”. They must NOT discuss the matter with others or note on the file that a report has been made to the MLRO in case this results in the suspect becoming aware of the situation.
Once the MLRO has received the report, it must be evaluated in a timely manner in order to determine whether:
Where the MLRO concludes that there are no reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering then consent will be given for any on-going or imminent transaction(s) to proceed.
Where consent is required from the NCA for a transaction to proceed, then the transaction(s) in question must not be undertaken or completed until the NCA has given specific consent, or there is deemed consent through the expiration of the relevant time limits without objection from the NCA.
All disclosure reports referred to the MLRO and reports made to the NCA will be retained by the MLRO in a confidential file kept for that purpose, for a minimum of 5 years.
The MLRO must also consider whether additional notifications and reports to other relevant enforcement agencies should be made.
Due diligence is performed on all customers who must provide basic information including name, address, registration details (corporate bodies).
During the process of client registration in Coinance platform, the following details must be provided:
Individual Clients
Individual clients must furthermore provide high resolution, scanned copy or photo of the passport or national ID, with the name, date and place of birth, passport number, issue and expiry dates, issuing country and signature of the customer
Corporate Clients
Corporate clients must furthermore provide high-resolution copies of documents such as certificate of registration, and, where applicable, the name change certificate, certificate of good standing, articles of incorporation, the government issued business license (if applicable), etc.
With instructions from new customers or customers not known well to the Company, customers in known high risk industries and/or jurisdictions, transactions that are unusual for the customer or other unusual requests, highly complex transactions or payment arrangements, the Company may wish to seek additional evidence of identity. This may include:
If satisfactory evidence of identity is not obtained at the outset then the business relationship or one off transaction(s) cannot proceed any further.
Where “relevant business” is carried out, the customer identification evidence and details of the relevant transaction(s) for that customer must be retained for at least 5 years.
Coinance will principally retain the following records from an AML perspective: