paper with words anti-money laundering
desinger491/123RF

The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) has published guidance on the penalties it imposes for anti-money laundering (AML) rule violations.

In the guidance, FINTRAC outlined how it assesses harm and calculates penalties for KYC violations, suspicious transaction reporting lapses, recordkeeping failures and other violations.

The guidance augments FINTRAC’s penalty policy, which was recently revised to reflect that the agency must now publicly reveal when monetary penalties are imposed for AML violations.

As of June 21, 2019, any securities dealer, financial firm or other company that runs afoul of FINTRAC rules will have the penalty, and its violations, made public. Previously, public disclosure of FINTRAC penalties was left to the discretion of the agency.