Concept of protection of Ria Payment Institution, EP, SAU against legalization and financing of terrorism and basic principles of AML/CTF
1. INTRODUCTION
Ria Payment Institution, EP, SAU , is a payment services company registered at Calle Cantabria 2 - 2A1, Alcobendas, 28108, Madrid, Spain under registration number A80696792. Ria Payment Institution, EP, SAU is an authorized payment entity registered in the Register of Special Entities of the Bank of Spain under number 6842.
The financial institution issues this concept of protection against legalization and financing of terrorism in order to prevent the misuse of the company against legalization of proceeds from crime and financing of terrorism.
2. PROTECTION CONCEPT
This protection concept formulates the basic principles in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, while the nature of its business activities, including the structure of clients and their risk profile, the scope of activities and products, geographical risks and their evaluation in the context of the associated risks in the field of money laundering and terrorist financing were carefully considered during the preparation. The concept is prepared in accordance with Act 297/2008 on the protection against money laundering and terrorist financing as well as Article 2 of the Methodological Guidelines of the National Bank of Slovakia 4/2019.
The protection concept is part of the organizational structure of the financial institution and its agents, is constantly enforced and publicly available to the agents' clients. The financial institution is responsible for the overall protection against money laundering and terrorist financing. The designated person is responsible for the practical implementation of activities in the field of protection of the financial institution and its agents (i.e. performance of routine activities ensuring the fulfillment of the protection concept, reporting of unusual business operations and ongoing contact with the National Bank of Slovakia and the Financial Intelligence Unit.) In the event of unusual or suspicious activities, the agent immediately informs the financial institution and the latter checks these facts. In the event of confirmation of this suspicion, the designated person informs the FSJ and delivers feedback to the agent.
3. ORGANIZATIONAL SECURITY
The designated person and the compliance team are employees of the financial institution. A decision by the compliance team is required to dismiss a designated person. The organizational structure ensures the effective and independent performance of activities, in particular the separation of the activities of the designated person from the performance of transactions and the designated person has unrestricted access to all documents and databases of the financial institution, the compliance team and the designated person independently decide on the assessment of unusual business transactions of clients as well as on sending reports of these transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit. The program of own activities aimed at combating the legalization of proceeds from crime and protection against the financing of terrorism as well as other internal legal regulations in this area, which describe in detail the implementation of measures to prevent and detect possible attempts to legalize proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism at various levels and with which all employees of the financial institution and its agents are familiar to the necessary extent. RIA PAYMENT INSTITUTION, EP SAU has a properly established system for implementing professional training for employees in the field of prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, within which each new employee is trained to fulfill their duties in this area, while annual professional training of employees and agents is carried out with the aim of providing them with all the necessary information and knowledge necessary to fulfill their duties in connection with protection against money laundering and terrorist financing.
4. KNOW YOUR CLIENT AND RISK ASSESSMENT
The financial institution conducts a thorough investigation of data on its clients relevant to protection against money laundering and terrorist financing, collecting, to the extent necessary, data necessary for the unambiguous identification of the client and its verification, identification of the ultimate beneficial owner and its verification, obtaining information about the purpose and planned nature of the business relationship, determining whether the client or the ultimate beneficial owner of the client is a politically exposed person or a sanctioned person, and possibly other data depending on the risk assessment of this client.
RIA PAYMENT INSTITUTION EP, SAU has an established system for assessing the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing. The risks are assessed in relation to each client and, based on their assessment, appropriate care is provided in relation to each client. The procedures for assessing clients and their business operations are based on a risk-oriented approach and assessment taking into account the level of knowledge of the client, the nature of the products used by the client and the level of care corresponding to his risk profile. In accordance with regulatory requirements, it also updates the data obtained about clients at regular intervals and, based on new knowledge, reassesses their risk profile.
5. ASSESSMENT OF TRADES
The financial institution has implemented an effective mechanism aimed at detecting situations and transactions aimed at legalizing proceeds from crime or financing terrorism. To this end, professionally trained employees, based on the data and knowledge obtained about the client, thoroughly assess each business relationship, both before its conclusion and during its duration. The financial institution also continuously monitors the payment transactions carried out using specialized software tools.
RIA PAYMENT INSTITUTION EP SAU fulfills obligations arising from laws that impose obligations in the field of international sanctions ensuring peace and security. Based on this, before and during the duration of the business relationship with the client, it identifies using specialized tools and services whether the client is not listed on the sanctions list. The financial institution also has implemented rules that define employee procedures in the event that international sanctions are applied to the client or any persons related to him or her or an international sanction is being applied.
6. DETECTION AND REPORTING OF UNUSUAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
RIA PAYMENT INSTITUTION EP, SAU pays special attention to all complex, unusually large transactions and all transactions of an unusual nature that do not have an obvious economic purpose or an obvious legal purpose, in order to investigate the purpose of these transactions to the maximum extent possible. In the event of any suspicious circumstances, the payment institution has clearly defined rules, based on which the employee who identified the suspicion in connection with the transaction makes an internal report and forwards the necessary information to specialized employees who evaluate the transaction according to defined standards and rules in terms of its unusualness. All transactions that are considered unusual are immediately reported to the Financial Intelligence Unit in the manner prescribed by law.
7. INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEM
In accordance with regulatory requirements, the financial institution has an effective internal control system in place, with internal control obligations covering all levels of the company's organizational structure, which also supervises the fulfillment of the obligations of the financial institution, agents and individual employees in the area of protection against money laundering and terrorist financing. Within the framework of the aforementioned internal control system, a specialized control of the implementation and compliance with the AML program and other internal regulations in this area is carried out at least once a year by the employee responsible for the performance of internal control, within which the procedures adopted for the purposes of protection against money laundering or terrorist financing, as well as the performance of duties by employees, are verified.
8. FINAL PROVISIONS
The above-mentioned basic principles and principles of the Protection Concept are elaborated and specified in internal regulations for the purpose of a detailed description of the implementation of measures to prevent and detect attempts to legalize the proceeds of crime and the financing of terrorism. The most important internal regulation, by which the Protection Concept is implemented, is the AML Program. The Protection Concept and the procedures elaborated in the internal regulations resulting from it are valid and binding for all employees of RIA PAYMENT INSTITUTION EP, SAU. The Concept is binding for all employees of the financial institution as well as agents and is publicly available at each agent location.