AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre) is the Australian government agency. AUSTRAC is responsible for preventing, detecting, and responding to criminal abuse of the financial system to protect the community from serious and organized crime.
While it becomes more complex with the developing technology, it supports the institutions in fulfilling their regulatory obligations in ensuring the oversight of the financial sector against financial criminals. AUSTRAC is a thriving institution against changing crimes by collecting financial reports and information against criminals.
Austrac Compliance Reports
The compliance report is the annual report of companies in Australia to AUSTRAC, which includes questions about how they fulfill their AML/CFT obligations each year. Except for the companies that are not exempt, all companies must be listed as an administrator in the AUSTRAC ONLINE account in order to send a compliance report. Businesses that do not publish their compliance report may face penalties and sanctions by AUSTRAC.
One of the most important obligations under Australia's Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act (2006) is companies' preparation of compliance reports. At the end of 2021, AUSTRAC has published compliance report tips that will help businesses under the audit prepare their compliance reports in order to deepen their work for 2022.
In his article Insights and tips from the compliance report he presented the top 3 tips to help you meet AML and CFT obligations:
- Make sure your money laundering (ML)/ terrorist financing(TF) risk assessment and staff training are up to date.
- It is essential that you strengthen how high-risk customers in your business are identified and managed with enhanced customer due diligence.
- Use a powerful transaction monitor to detect suspicious activity.
Although businesses update their money laundering and terrorism financing programs, they should regularly review their risk assessments. Enhanced customer due diligence and continuous real-time notifications to customers identified as high risk will provide a more important step in the fight against financial crimes. At the same time, suspicious transactions, not just high-risk customers, need to be reported quickly to AUSTRAC. All financial businesses are obliged to report Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) to Financial Intelligence Units.
Sanction Scanner Makes Your Job Easier
It is almost impossible to perform customer identity screening and customer transaction monitoring manually or with traditional technology. In the database supported by Sanction Scanner artificial intelligence, there are sanctions, wanted, PEP lists of more than 220 countries, and there are more than 3000 lists in total. With these scans, you can reduce the financial crime potential of your business and protect yourself from regulatory penalties.
Thanks to its powerful API, you can easily integrate your company with Sanction Scanner within hours and receive real-time alarms. With the Transaction Monitoring solution, you can easily detect suspicious transactions and reduce false positives while reducing your workload. Automated Ongoing Monitoring solution, you can monitor risky people at desired periods and receive an alarm in case of any change.
If you want to learn about Sanction Scanner's AML solution, you can contact us and request a demo to see our software in action.
