Thailand’s Anti-Money Laundering Office has released new guidelines on customer due diligence (CDD) for insurance companies to outline anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing measures based on the Anti-Money Laundering Act B.E. 2542 (1999). The previous guidelines were revoked and replaced by these guidelines.
The guidelines include seven key measures:
- Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policy: Insurance companies must establish a policy in Thai that outlines the organization’s approach to assessing, managing, and mitigating risks related to money laundering, terrorism financing, and proliferation.
- Risk management framework: Insurance companies’ frameworks for risk management are to be divided into three stages: (1) internal risk management, (2) risk assessment before customer onboarding, and (3) ongoing customer risk management.
- CDD before engagement with customers: Insurance companies must implement a rigorous approval process to verify customers’ identities.
- Customer information review and transaction monitoring: Insurance companies must update customer information and the list of banned transactions to ensure compliance with current risk profiles.
- Enhanced CDD for high-risk clients: Insurance companies must apply a stricter level of verification and monitoring measures for high-risk clients, including reviews of financial transactions.
- Third-party reliance and subsidiary controls: Reliance on third parties is allowed only in processes for customer identification and verification of identity. Internal controls and policies for subsidiaries or affiliates must be updated regularly.
- Suspicious transaction reporting: Insurance companies must report any suspicious transactions, particularly whenever CDD is not available.
For more details on the CDD guidelines, or on any aspect of insurance and anti-money laundering regulations in Thailand, please contact Athistha (Nop) Chitranukroh at [email protected], Witchupong Chittchang at [email protected], Ajaree Trachukul at [email protected], or Sireethorn Wijan at [email protected].
