Kazakhstan bans anonymous bank accounts

A new law that prohibits opening of anonymous bank accounts has been adopted in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews reports.

Today, the Senate of the Parliament adopted the Law "On amendments and additions to some of the legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan concerning counteraction to legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and terrorist financing."

The purpose of this law is to eliminate shortcomings and implement the key recommendations made by the Eurasian Group on Combating of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism. This law will help prevent operations and correspondence with shell banks. It will also prohibit opening of anonymous bank accounts or bank accounts under fictitious names.

In addition, the new law expands the list of entities and persons subject to financial monitoring. "To comply with the international standards, Kazakhstan needs to embrace a system of financial monitoring of all entities and persons providing financial services. With this in mind, the list is supplemented with three new subjects of financial monitoring. These are accounting organizations and certified public accountants, microfinance institutions, and operators of electronic money systems that are not banks," Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Kazakhstan Bakhyt Sultanov said at a meeting of the Parliament.

During his speech, the Finance Minister said that the law established additional requirements for entities and persons subject to financial monitoring. They will be obliged to "carry out customer verification before or during establishment of business relations, pay special attention to all complex and unusually large transactions that have no clear economic sense or do not pursue an obvious lawful purpose”. In addition, they must have "a money laundering risk management program” to tackle the risk of legalization of proceeds from crime and terrorist financing, including the risk of use of technological advances and gadgets, Sultanov said. Effective training of staff to identify and prevent attempts of money laundering or financing of terrorist activities will also have to be in place.

The adopted law will soon be sent for signature to the President and will come into force after that.

Reporting by Assel Satayeva, writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina