UKGC confirms January date for new AML guidelines implementation

Rank Group Plc has praised the UK Government's White Paper on gambling legislation, stating that the long-awaited review has reached the objective of striking the right balance between “consumer freedoms and choice on the one hand, and protection from harm on the other.”

Updated money laundering regulations, which will oversee the implementation of the EU 5th Money Laundering Directive, are to come into force early next year confirms the UK Gambling Commission.

Taking effect from January 10, 2020, the changes will mean that all land-based and remote casino operators licensed by the region’s regulator must continue to carry out business reviews ‘and accordingly amending, their money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessments, as well as the associated policies, procedures and controls’.

Under the new directive, all land-based and remote casino operators must invest appropriately in technology which will mitigate the risk of money laundering.

In addition, casinos must implement ‘further requirements for enhanced customer due diligence measures for high-risk third countries, complex or unusually large transactions, and where there are unusual patterns of transactions, or the transactions have no apparent economic or legal purpose, as well as customers who are beneficiaries of life insurance policies or the customer is a third country national who has received citizenship in an EEA state in exchange for the transfer of capital, purchase of property, government bonds or investment in corporate entities in the EEA state.’

Alongside the EU 5th Money Laundering Directive, the UKGC will also publish the 5th edition of its guidance for remote and non-remote casinos on ‘The prevention of money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism’, which will come into force immediately on publication.

In a statement on its website, the UKGC said: “The Commission recognises that it takes time to implement changes and we will take that into account, but we expect to see that operators have acted promptly, invested appropriately (if technology is required to accommodate the changes) and implemented changes with the requisite urgency.”