Legal origin audit

A bank asks these questions because the anti-money laundering statute requires it to carry out customer due diligence, and because it must end the relationship when it cannot complete that due diligence.

Article 21 of the anti-money laundering statute requires every bank to carry out identification at every business relationship, and identification of an occasional client from 10,000 euros. Article 33 is the hinge provision: where the bank cannot complete identification and verification within the statutory time limit, it may not enter into a business relationship and must end an existing one. A question about the origin of assets left unanswered therefore bears directly on whether the account continues.

Article 47 requires the bank to report to the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit as soon as it knows, suspects or has reasonable grounds to suspect that funds are linked to money laundering, whatever the amount and without having to identify the underlying offence. Article 55 at the same time forbids the bank from telling the client that such a report is or will be made. That is why a bank rarely explains a question about the origin of assets, and its silence is not on its own a sign of ill will.

Article 67 of the same statute also bans any cash payment above 3,000 euros within a transaction or a set of linked transactions. A transaction that nears or reaches that threshold is among the questions a bank or an accountant asks most often.

The bank itself answers to the same supervisory rules: Article 85 names the National Bank of Belgium as the supervisory authority for credit institutions, and Article 132 allows an administrative fine of up to 5,000,000 euros or ten percent of annual turnover. A bank in doubt therefore chooses caution over that risk of a fine.

Everest (anti)fraud examines, on the basis of a consultation and the documentation you provide or that we request from third parties, whether your assets or the transactions in question have a lawful origin, and sets out its findings in a report you can put to your bank or accountant.

We look together with you at which answer best fits the question you were asked. Based on what you tell us during a consultation, supplemented with the documentation you provide or that we request from third parties, we check whether the assets or the transaction in question have a lawful origin. We deliver our findings as a report, which you can use towards your bank, your accountant or another third party.

Where a correction proves necessary, we advise you on it and guide that correction where required. A file already known to us through an in-house AML support engagement usually fits faster with a legal origin audit, because the underlying risk assessment already exists.

Where at least three credit institutions refuse your application, or two institutions refuse and your existing account is terminated, the Belgian Code of Economic Law gives you a right to a basic banking service through the basic banking service chamber at the FPS Economy. That service costs no more than 420 euros a year. Where you disagree with your bank’s decision, the ombudsman for financial services can set that decision aside. Our earlier piece on a bank closing an account sets out the same situation from the client’s side.

Where this question reaches us through a fellow lawyer, the page for fellow lawyers sets out what we take over from that file. What money laundering is and the dangers the statute targets, our specialists set out earlier on this site.

Article 33 of the anti-money laundering statute requires your bank to end the relationship where it cannot complete customer due diligence. That applies even where you act in good faith: the statute leaves no room for a partial answer. A legal origin audit delivers the answer that lets the bank complete that due diligence.

Article 55 of the anti-money laundering statute forbids your bank from telling you that a report to the Financial Intelligence Processing Unit is or will be made, or that an analysis is under way. Your bank’s silence is therefore not a sign of ill will, but a statutory duty.

Where at least three credit institutions refuse your application for an account, the Belgian Code of Economic Law gives you a right to a basic banking service through the basic banking service chamber at the FPS Economy, for a maximum of 420 euros a year. The same right arises where two institutions refuse and your existing accounts are terminated.

Article 67 of the anti-money laundering statute bans any cash payment above 3,000 euros within a transaction or a set of linked transactions. A transaction that nears or reaches that threshold is among the questions a bank or an accountant asks most often.