According to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) the definition of a Trust and Company Service Providers (TCSP) is a business, that provides any of the following services to third parties:
- Acting as a formation agent of legal persons Acting as (or arranging for another person to act as) a director or secretary of a company, a partner of a partnership, or a similar position in relation to other legal persons;
- Providing a registered office; business address or accommodation, correspondence or administrative address for a company, a partnership or any other legal person or arrangement;
- Acting as (or arranging for another person to act as) a trustee of an express trust or performing the equivalent function for another form of legal arrangement;
- Acting as (or arranging for another person to act as) a nominee shareholder for another person.[1]
The above FATF definition of a ‘TCSP’ excludes providers of TCSP services within financial institutions, law firms, notaries, other independent legal professionals and accountants, who will be separately regulated within their own professions.
The Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Acts 2010 to 2021 (the Act), requires TCSPs to help prevent money laundering or terrorist financing and register as designated persons with the AML Compliance Unit of the Department of Justice. They must also apply Customer Due Diligence (CDD) to all their transactions including the retention of certain customer identity documents, verify client data with the RBO register, maintain an AML Policies & Procedures Manual and provide staff with regular AML training.
There are currently around 380 TCSPs registered with the Department of Justice AML Compliance Unit and the latest list of registered TCSPs as of June 2022 may be viewed here.
[1] FATF ‘Guidance For A Risk-Based Approach for Trust and Company Service Providers’ (June 2019)
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