Draft Guidance Note (GN) 7A which was initially issued by the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) for public consultation in April 2022, has recently been made available for a second round of consultation. All comments received from the first consultation phase have been considered and incorporated in the updated second draft where appropriate.
It is intended that draft GN 7A will replace Chapter 4 of Guidance Note 7 which was published by the FIC in October 2017 to provide guidance on the amendments to the FIC Act and the formulation of a Risk Management Compliance Programme (RMCP).
The draft updates to GN 7A provide additional guidance in respect of an accountable institution’s RMCP and the documentation describing the RMCP. The draft GN 7A clarifies that it is expected that the board of the accountable institution (AI) approves the RMCP, including any amendments made to the RMCP, and that the RMCP is adequately described in the RMCP documentation. Furthermore, the reference to the term “Apex” RMCP, which was inserted during the first-round consultation phase has been removed from the second draft due to this being incorrectly interpreted as introducing an additional legislative requirement.
The requirement that the RMCP must provide for all the requirements as set out in section 42 of the FIC Act, remains in place.