Trust and Company Service Providers

Trust and Company Service Providers

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)

Are your AML Policies Controls & Procedures up to date?

We have just released our latest Anti-Money Laundering Policies Controls & Procedures Manual (March 2022) – View the Table of Contents click here.

We have also just released an updated AML webinar (March 2022) available here, which accompanies the AML Manual. It explains the current legal AML reporting position for accountancy firms.

To ensure your letters of engagement and similar templates are up to date visit our site here where immediate downloads are available in Word format. A bulk discount is available for orders of five or more items if bought together.

For our latest Audit Quality Control Manual (October 2021) (implementing the latest Irish Audit & Accounting Supervisory Authority standards including ISQC1 on audit quality control) click here. View the Table of Contents here.

Do you know what your kids are up to?

Do you know what your kids are up to?

Cybercrime is not without victims and is taken extremely seriously by law enforcement.

Teenagers can drift into cyber-crime without realising the seriousness of their actions. In a timely video message from the UK National Crime Agency (NCA), parents are warned about the crimes teenagers can get involved in, especially during COVID-19 confinement.

The NCA have put together a series of online resources aimed at students/parents/guardians/carers and teachers. Coding, programming and computing are great skills to learn, but only if used safely.

The Garda Síochána have similar resources available at the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau (GNCCB) website.

The Garda site also includes advice on the most common forms of money laundering during this Coronavirus era such as ransomware, spoof bank websites, Investment scams and CEO fraud, among several others.

Now is a good time to tighten up your AML procedures. For our latest 2020 Anti-Money Laundering Policies & Procedures Manual (retails for €150+VAT) see our online store here.

The Manual contains everything you need to successfully implement the requirements of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Acts, 2010 to 2018 and the Register of Beneficial Ownership.

Comes with a, free of charge, Excel spreadsheet called the ‘AML Control Sheet’ which firms may use to give a ‘helicopter’ view of progress made with keeping client AML data up to date.

Catch up on your AML CPD training here with webinars (all at €45 each and available on demand) on various AML topics like: