The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) of Malta has identified several AML/CFT violations for Em@ney plc. Due to the deficiencies, the FIAU has levied an administrative penalty of €359,339 ($431,924) on Em@ney. It has also issued a follow-up directive under the country’s Prevention of Money Laundering and Funding of Terrorism Regulation (PMLFTR), which requires the company to draft an Action Plan for how it would address the deficiencies identified by the authority.
The authority had conducted an onsite compliance review of the financial institution in 2019. During its compliance inspection, the FIAU found that Em@ney’s Business Risk Assessment was inadequate and not conducted on time. There were also many deficiencies in the company’s Customer Risk Assessment (CRA). Some of these include failure to provide an adequate and comprehensive view of how the company calculates the different CRA components, failure to define the cut-off risk scores for a customer to be designated as low, medium or high risk, and failure to incorporate customer risk in the CRA.
Moreover, Em@ney failed to define the characteristics of a high-risk customer. Additionally, even with an efficient transaction monitoring system, the company failed to scrutinize specific transactions adequately or completely.
Source: FIAU, Malta