The election last week of a new Canadian prime minister could translate into a tougher tack on money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes, according to compliance professionals.
Lax enforcement of Canada's anti-money laundering laws and regulations have helped make British Columbian property an attractive investment for criminals, according to Kenneth Marsh, a former investigator of organized crime for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Canada's financial watchdogs outlined their expectations and priorities Monday, clarifying a policy that previously gave banks a warning one month in advance of pending regulatory examinations.
Canada's primary regulator of depository institutions is considering launching a thematic review of the anti-money laundering controls of offshore banking affiliates in bank secrecy jurisdictions, an official said Tuesday.
Canada's primary financial regulator is looking into whether Bank of Montreal violated anti-money laundering rules following the issuance of two enforcement actions Friday by federal U.S. agencies, a spokesperson confirmed.
Canada's primary financial regulator will focus its anti-money laundering efforts on ensuring that institutions implement plans to monitor high-risk clients and address other known compliance gaps, an official said Thursday.
Canadian compliance officers at banks and non-bank institutions are bracing themselves for broad changes to their anti-money laundering obligations ahead of the country's next evaluation by an international watchdog group.
Financial institutions in Canada will be required to strengthen their due diligence controls and report all cross-border transactions, under draft rules proposed by the country's Department of Finance Wednesday.
Proposed amendments to Canada's primary anti-money laundering law would require banks and other companies to apply new prescriptive compliance controls in place of the risk-based policies currently used, say industry experts.
Disclosures by Canada's financial regulator of suspected money laundering and other crimes have more than tripled in recent years even as the number of suspicious transaction reports filed annually by banks has fallen.
Since gaining penalty powers nearly three years ago, Canada's financial intelligence unit is shifting its focus from training financial institutions about compliance duties to penalizing those that haven't complied quickly enough.