The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs has completed a Know Your Population project that identified 64 real estate businesses subject to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act and added them to its supervised population. The review also found that newly identified reporting entities often completed basic compliance steps but had not developed the risk assessments needed to underpin effective AML/CFT programs. The department compared the Real Estate Authority’s register of 930 entities with its supervisory records. After excluding suspended businesses, it sought information from 156 active entities that were not recorded as supervised. Among the entities assessed, 86% had appointed an AML/CFT compliance officer. Risk assessments and AML/CFT programs were less consistently established and tended to be absent together, indicating that entities which had not assessed their risks were unlikely to have progressed to substantive controls. The findings will inform more systematic scans of supervised sectors, stronger information sharing with industry and professional bodies, targeted compliance information and improvements to reporting entity data.
New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs identifies 64 real estate reporting entities and AML/CFT risk assessment gaps
The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs identified 64 real estate businesses subject to AML/CFT supervision through its Know Your Population project. Although 86% of assessed entities had appointed a compliance officer, risk assessments and the programs based on them were less consistently in place. The department will use the findings to improve sector scans, outreach and supervisory data.