UAE Announces Anti-Money Laundering Advisory For Insurance Companies

The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) has announced an advisory regarding anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) for insurance companies, including agents and brokers.

The guidelines, effective immediately, will enable insurance companies to assess the risks and also the implementation of their AML and CFT duties in line with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) objectives.

Furthermore, the guidelines require insurance companies to meet the above-mentioned objectives in a month. They also shed light on money laundering (ML) and terror financing (TF) practices, which are linked with life insurance and other insurance products.

Moreover, the advisory emphasizes the need of adopting preventive measures to identify and combat these practices.

The CBUAE recommends insurance companies conduct proper background checks on their customers in order to understand the nature of their businesses and the reason for seeking insurance.

Additionally, it also instructs them to keep a record of customers’ transactions and recognize the patterns of their activities if they appear suspicious and unusual. In case of any suspicion, it urges them to report it directly to the UAE’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) via the ‘goAML’ portal.