January 07 2016
The British Virgin Islands has announced amendments to its anti-money laundering regime in order to ensure continued compliance with the developing international standards on transparency and anti-money laundering regimes. Amendments to the legislation were recently published (ie, the Anti-money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Code of Practice and the Anti-money Laundering (Amendment) Regulations) and the proposed changes took effect on January 1 2016. The changes have the most impact on the eligible introducer regime – in particular, where a BVI-registered agent relies on third-party introducers to obtain and verify the identity of the client.
In short, the changes require certain beneficial ownership information to be held and kept up to date by registered agents in the British Virgin Islands, a process which has been labelled the ‘onshoring of beneficial ownership information’. However, the eligible introducer arrangements will continue to allow detailed customer due diligence materials (eg, copy passports) to be held by third-party introducers, provided they are made available on request and without delay.