For financial crime professionals, AML officers, or anyone seeking clarity on fraud and AML terms, Edifice offers a glossary of common acronyms and definitions.
We’ll continuously update this resource to reflect industry developments.
A company that helps evaders avoid the appearance of involvement of either a sanctioned entity or an entity that is trying to do business with a sanctions target. Evaders choose an isolation company for its past business activities or its lack of traceable connection to the entities involved in the evasive activity.
The JFIU, as the name implies, is jointly run by staff members of the Hong Kong Police Force and the Hong Kong Customs & Excise Department.
ShapeThe JFIU manages the suspicious transaction reporting regime for Hong Kong, and its role is to receive and analyse STRs to disseminate them to the appropriate law enforcement agencies in or outside Hong Kong or financial intelligence units worldwide.
The country where an individual resides most of the time is the country where an individual lives in their primary residence.
A corrupt leader who exploits the people and resources of a state for personal gain.
KYB, a software technology term, refers to how businesses verify their identity and assess the risk associated with their customer or business partners. This involves gathering information about the business entity, such as its legal structure, beneficial owners, business activities, and financial health, to ensure compliance with regulations and mitigate risks related to money laundering, fraud, and other illicit activities. KYB aims to enhance business relationship transparency and protect against potential financial crimes.
Anti-money laundering policies and procedures are used to determine a customer’s true identity and the “normal and expected” activity and detect “unusual” activity for a particular customer.
A process by which businesses verify the identities and backgrounds of both current staff and potential hires. The objective of KYE is to ensure that employees are who they say they are and are not overly risky due to having histories of criminal activity.
Mental state accompanying a prohibited act. The Interpretive Notes to Recommendation 3 of the FATF 40 Recommendations of 2012 says that countries should ensure that the intent and knowledge required to prove the offence of money laundering is consistent with the standards outlined in the Vienna and Palermo Conventions, including the concept that such a mental state may be inferred from objective factual circumstances. The exact definition of knowledge accompanying an anti-money laundering act varies by country. Knowledge can be deemed, under certain circumstances, to include willful blindness, that is, “the deliberate avoidance of knowledge of the facts,” as some courts have defined the term.
A legal entity is a body such as a corporation or labour union that, under the law, possesses rights and responsibilities, notably including the ability to initiate or be targeted in a lawsuit.
An entity or group, such as a corporation, has rights and responsibilities like a human being, notably the ability to file or defend a lawsuit.
