The scale and pace of legislative change has been remarkable.  And given the importance regulators and the wider public place on preventing financial crime, there is a huge amount of pressure on compliance, legal and front line staff to get the new rules right the first time round.

This is the first in a series of blogs that will take an in-depth look at the changes being made in the world of financial crime, and takes a forward look to new legislative developments.

We will also be creating a repository of useful materials - from legislation to guidelines and case law to consultations.  If there are topics of particular interest that you would like to have addressed, or materials that would be useful to add to the repository, then please do let me know.

Unsurprisingly, the hottest issue over the past couple of weeks has been the new

Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (2017 Regulations).

What may have slipped past is the accompanying Transposition Note, which sets out the UK legislative provisions transposing the Fourth Money Laundering Directive (4MLD) and the Funds Transfer Regulation (FTR), setting out the EU and UK intention behind a particular UK provision, and the accompanying impact assessment, which sets out the key monetised and non-monetised costs and benefits of the 2017 Regulations.

To give you a flavour of our forthcoming blogs, we have set out the key recent EU and UK developments and mapped them onto the 2017 Regulations. These developments will be on your radar because of the requirements imposed on firms or the supervisory authority.

EU

1. The European Supervisory Authority (ESAs) joint opinion on the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing affecting the EU's financial sector (reg 47(3)(c)), which forms part of the Commission's Supranational Risk assessment Report.
2. The Commission's Supranational Risk Assessment Report, which assesses the risks of money laundering and terrorist affecting the EU market and relating to cross-border activities (regs 16(5), 17(2)(a), 47(3)(a) and (b)).
3. The ESAs guidelines seeking to foster a consistent approach to risk based supervisory practices and a common approach to simplified and enhanced customer due diligence (regs 17(2)(b), 33(8), 37(7), 46(3)(a), 47(3)(e), 76(6)(a)(i) and 86(2)(a)).
4. The delegated act identifies high-risk third countries and triggers the application of enhanced customer due diligence measures (regs 33(1)(b) and (3), 39(4) and 47(3)(d)).

UK

5. The plentiful supply of publications and guidance on the 2017 Regulations from the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group, the Financial Reporting Council and HMRC (firms will be particularly conscious of regs 19(5)(b), 21(10)(b)(ii), 24(3)(b)(ii), 35(4)(b)(ii), 76(6)(b)(ii) and 86(2)(b)(ii)).
6. The Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) guidance from the FCA under the 2017 Regulations, and its notice regarding the reporting requirements for their authorised firms that act, or cease to act, as a Money Service Business (MSB) or Trust or Company Service Provider (regs 3(1) for MSB, 12(2) and 23).
7. The UK's 2015 National Risk Assessment identifying, understanding and assessing the money laundering and terrorist financing risks faced by the UK.

As if that was not enough, there are a number of major developments coming up in the short term and on the horizon - we will cover many of them in future blogs, as well.

8. Over the summer and autumn months, we expect to see an agreement on the draft proposal to amend 4MLD.
9. On the horizon, we are expecting to see final versions of the draft ESAs guidelines on the FTR (regs 63(4), 64(1), 76(6)(a)(ii) and 86(2)(a)), and the draft amendments to the delegated act identifying high-risk third countries (firms will be conscious of regs 27(9), 28(11) to (13) and 33(1), (5) to (7)).
10. Finally, on the ever full horizon, we are expecting to see final versions of the draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) concerning the appointment of Central Contact Points for payment service providers and electronic money issuers (reg 22), and the draft RTS where a non-EEA state's law prohibit the implementation of group-wide programmes (regs 20(1)(b), (3) and (4) and 25).