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The Central Bank of Kuwait mandates global audits for exchange companies on money laundering and terrorist financing laws.
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Inspect to block blacklisted transactions and audit public benefit organizations and charities with sample transactions.
As part of its continuous endeavors to bolster the battle against money laundering, the Central Bank of Kuwait has implemented a new auditing system. This system entails increased scrutiny of money transfer records to and from Kuwait, aligning with the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
The Central Bank obligated the exchange companies subject to its supervision to assign an impartial global auditing office to examine the extent of their compliance with the requirements of Law 106/2013 regarding combating money laundering and terrorist financing, especially transactions and activities that are unusual or do not have clear, legitimate economic objectives, provided that they apply the required audit on an ongoing basis, semi-annually, on June 30 and December 31 of each year.
The new inspection requires ensuring that no transactions are conducted with names and entities listed on global and local blacklists, in addition to verifying the transactions of public benefit organizations and charitable institutions by examining a selected sample of their transactions. It also requires ensuring that information about the customer and the actual beneficiary of the transfer is collected and their data is updated.
The new inspection requires keeping records of clients and their executed transactions, a task that has been attempted for five years, with the requirement that the appointed auditor be neither one of the company’s auditors nor one of those charged with examining its internal control.
