Accountants navigating their new world as “Accountable Institutions"

As part of the efforts to ward off the threatened grey listing of South Africa for non-compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, Schedule 1 of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) Act was amended on 29 November 2022. The amendments expand the list of people and businesses who are now regarded as “accountable institutions” under FICA, with all of the additional paperwork and administration that this entails. Classification as an accountable institution requires that your business registers with FICA and performs the same document-gathering due diligence that banks have been required to do.

Join CPD Campus on Tuesday 22 August 2023, from 08h00 to 09h00, when expert speaker Phia van der Spuy CA(SA) explains more about the impact of the amendments to Schedule 1 from the perspective of the accounting profession. During this live CPD session, the following aspects will, inter alia, be covered:

• A high-level summary of the recent amendments to the FIC Act.

• Why are accountants now specifically included as “accountable institutions”?

• Which services that accountants provide, make them “accountable institutions"?

• What is expected, in terms of the FICA, of the accountant as an “accountable institution”?

• What are the penalties for non-compliance with these amendments?

• How may acting as an “accountable institution” overlap with other roles that accountants fulfil, such as trusteeship and trust administration?

• How to assist your trust clients to remain compliant with their new “FIC flavour” obligations.