The South African Reserve Bank has imposed administrative sanctions on Authorised Dealers in foreign exchange with limited authority.
This was disclosed in a statement released on behalf of the Republic of South Africa, Department of Government, on Tuesday.
According to the statement, the SARB imposed the sanctions on Master Currency Limited, an ADLA.
It noted that the Authorised Dealers and ADLAs were persons authorised by SARB to deal in foreign exchange transactions subject to regulation.
“ADLAs include bureaux de change and are authorised to deal only in certain limited, designated foreign exchange transactions, including travel-related transactions.
“The Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001 mandates the SARB to ensure that ADLAs have adequate controls in place to combat acts of money laundering and financing of terrorism. Flowing from these responsibilities, the SARB inspects ADLAs to assess whether they have appropriate measures in place, as required by the FIC Act,” the document stated in part.
It further revealed that the administrative sanctions were imposed after the SARB found weaknesses in the control measures of the ADLA and Master Currency to control anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.
“It should be noted that the administrative sanctions were imposed because of certain weaknesses that were detected in ADLA’s control measures, which inhibited it from proactively detecting financial crime, and not because it was found to have facilitated transactions involving money laundering or the financing of terrorism,” the statement added.
It highlighted the sanctions to include a financial penalty of R100,000, for failure to provide ongoing training to employees to comply with the provisions in the Act.
The sanctions were also carried out against a directive in terms of section to provide the requisite refresher training at all branches and to submit confirmation, and evidence that such training has been conducted and will continue to be conducted on an annual basis.
