The Attorney General’s Department held a first round of consultation in 2023, on reforms to Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws. The reforms aim to ensure it continues to effectively deter, detect and disrupt money laundering and terrorism financing, and meet international standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global financial crime watchdog. Stakeholders were generally supportive of expanding the AML/CTF regime to cover additional sectors providing certain high-risk services, industry and stakeholders requested further detail on how the reforms would impact them. This paper (in addition to other papers) called - Paper 1: Reforming Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime, provides further detail on the proposal to bring certain services provided by real estate professionals, property developers and other businesses within the regime.
Real property makes up more than 65% of confiscated proceeds of crime in Australia. There have been case studies provided in the Department’s first consultation paper, to illustrate the scope of this problem, particularly for residential and commercial property. Additional case studies in this paper showcase more recent examples of real estate professionals’ witting and unwitting involvement in money laundering.
It is proposed in the first paper, that reporting entities will be required to make and securely store records about the customer due diligence measures they undertook, the services they provided and how they met the AML/CTF requirements. If a Licensee's business is misused for criminal purposes, their records may help AUSTRAC or other authorities investigate.AgentSafe is ideal for retaining certain records that can assist with the investigation of financial crime. AgentSafe for Real Estate is now consulting with software developers on the inclusion of the following customer due diligence measures, that a reporting entity will be required to undertake during the sales process;
- AML/CTF Buyer Due Diligence Measures Undertaken
- AML/CTF Seller Due Diligence Measures Undertaken
- Reporting Certain Transactions and Suspicious Activity to AUSTRAC.
If a bill is passed in parliament for these new law changes (and subject to any other changes), AgentSafe for Real Estate will prepare a roll out of the additional features to ensure users are able to successfully comply with AML/CTF legislation.
For more information about the second stage of consultation click here.