On September 7, 2021, two notices regarding the imposition of administrative monetary penalties appeared on the website of the Ministry of Finance. These penalties were related to violations of the provisions under the Law on Anti-Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism of March 1, 2018 (the AML Act). These are the first fines imposed on obliged institutions since the AML Act was amended.
The first institution to be fined was mBank S.A. The reason given was the failure to verify the identity of clients, as it was required to do under Articles 33 and 34 of the AML Act. The administrative fine imposed on the bank was PLN 450,000.
The second obliged institution punished for violation of the AML Act was CITRONEX MOP. In the case of this company, was found failure to apply specific financial security measures. It concerned an occasional transaction of over EUR 15,000! In addition, the fact of making an occasional transaction (with the value exceeding 15,000 euro) was not reported to the General Inspector of Financial Information. The penalty imposed on this entity was lower. It was only PLN 2,000.
At this moment there is no information that any of the institutions mentioned above has filed a complaint against the decision of the General Inspector of Financial Information. The imposition of the penalties described above clearly shows that the performance of obligations under the AML Act is enforced by the state authorities. Obliged institutions should therefore make efforts to comply with the current provisions of the Act as best they can.
The AML Act was published on 30 April 2021 and has already partially entered into force. The entire Act will become effective on October 30, 2021.
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