Police fail AML test

Anti-money laundering legislation has been in place less than a week but so far the only security scare it has uncovered is one caused by the Police Intelligence Unit.

Friday, July 5th 2013, 6:00AM 3 Comments

by Susan Edmunds

The Financial Intelligence Unit of the NZ police sent out an email earlier this week to everyone registered as a reporting entity under the AML scheme, asking them to verify their details via a portal called goAML.

It will be used to report suspicious transactions and for communication with reporting entities.

But the plain-text email, which PAA general manager Jenny Campbell said was “appallingly written”, looked very much like a scam.

“I had lots of panicked calls from people all over the country saying ‘I’m not sure what to do with this’.”

She said, until the email was received, very few advisers even knew they needed to register for the portal. “We had to send out an email saying it’s not a scam, it’s real and it’s probably a good idea to register even though it’s not compulsory.”

But some advisers have since found that their systems are too advanced for the goAML technology.

One adviser requested assistance when he received an error message. He received a reply: “At this stage goAML Web does not support IE10. To resolve the issue try reverting to IE7/8/9 or us Google Chrome or Firefox.”

Campbell said it was the only hiccup so far with AML legislation. “It’s probably understandable. They were tweaking the legislation as late as last month. That’s not a lot of time for the regulator to get up to speed.”

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Comments from our readers

On 5 July 2013 at 8:30 am Fred said:

Good Heavens!. That is unreasonable. Only a month, or less, for the Regulators to get up to speed is unfair. Maybe allow a quarter or two to bed AML in, then look at it again in a year to see if it is working.

On 5 July 2013 at 12:11 pm AFAMuggins said:

Is there an actual requirement for advisers to register?

Isn't it only to report transactions?

On 5 July 2013 at 3:25 pm Red Tape Police said:

Funnily enough I had a dodgy looking email in my inbox the day AML started. So thought I would try the report to police functionality - it looked like it was going to take 5 hours and I needed an instruction manual so I didn't bother. It is like when our clients complain that they don't understand anything in my 3 disclosure statements and they understood my statement before the Red Tape Police took over.

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