FINTRAC has acknowledged that Covid-related staffing challenges might make it challenging to fulfil certain anti-money laundering obligations.
In their April 2020 guidance, they wrote:
“Once the COVID-19 situation normalizes and compliance activities resume, FINTRAC will consider the impact of the associated challenges, when assessing reporting entities’ compliance with the obligations identified in the PCMLTFA and its associated regulations. This will include being flexible and reasonable in assessing the ability of a reporting entity to update policies and procedures, in adhering with interim COVID-19 related measures, and effectively fulfilling certain time-bound obligations such as undertaking the two-year effectiveness review. FINTRAC will also take into account the additional time needed for reporting entities to fully address and remediate certain recommendations identified in previous FINTRAC examinations. Finally, FINTRAC will exercise careful judgement on other aspects of its examination mandate, such as determining the date of future compliance examinations.”
FINTRAC has further advised that in cases where there is an impact on a reporting entity’s ability to meet a given obligation, including the use of temporarily relaxed identification rules, the entity should keep a record indicating that deviation, why it occurred, and, where possible, include any measures being taken to mitigate the risk of non-compliance.
In view of the same, it would be noteworthy for reporting entities to keep and maintain a documented record (such as an issues log) for any non-compliances in view of Covid-19 and such record could be valuable at the time of future FINTRAC examinations.