Anti-money Laundering Approved Person Application Form

The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 require that professional bodies approve all beneficial owners, officers and managers of firms within their supervision.

The application form should be completed by your firms Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO).

What you'll need to apply:

  • The name's of your firm's beneficial owners, officers and managers
  • A  completed basic criminal disclosure check for each beneficial owner, officer and manager
  • Have setup or reset your ICAS digital account login
  • Your firm's AML Risk Assessment (optional)

Start Application

Application Guidance

Who are the beneficial owners, officers and managers in your firm?

Beneficial owners include:

  • a sole practitioner;
  • a partner, or LLP member, in a firm who:
    • holds (directly or indirectly) more than 25% of the capital, or profits or voting rights; or
    • exercises ultimate control; and
  • a shareholder in a limited company who:
    • holds (directly or indirectly) more than 25% of the shares or voting rights; or
    • ultimately owns, or exercises ultimate control.

Officer includes:

  • a sole practitioner;
  • a partner in a partnership (including a Scottish Limited Partnership (SLP));
  • a member in a limited liability partnership (LLP);
  • a director or company secretary in a limited company; and
  • a member of the firm’s management board or equivalent.

Manager includes:

  • the nominated officer (MLRO);
  • the Money Laundering Compliance Principal (i.e.the member of the board of directors (or if there is no board, of its equivalent management body) or of its senior management as the officer responsible for the relevant person’s compliance with MLR17); and
  • any other principal, senior manager, or member of a management committee who is responsible for setting, approving or ensuring the firm’s compliance with the firm’s Anti-Money Laundering policies and procedures, in relation to the following areas:
    • client acceptance procedures;
    • the firm’s risk management practices;
    • internal controls, including employee screening and training for AML purposes;
    • internal audit or the annual AML compliance review process;
    • customer due diligence, including policies for reliance; and
    • AML record keeping.

What if I have more than 30 beneficial owners, officers and managers?

To make the process easier for firms with a large number of beneficial owners, officers and managers we ask you to submit the AML approved person application for yourself (MLRO) only and provide a list of beneficial owners, officers and managers including their full name, and which category they fall into, in a format of your choosing (e.g. word or excel document). This should then be emailed to regulatoryauthorisations@icas.com. Please contact us on 0131 347 0283 for more information.

Basic criminal disclosure checks

The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 state that supervisors must grant approval unless the applicant has been convicted of a relevant offence (Schedule 3 of the Regulations defines the 35 Relevant Offences). The UK Government considers self-declaration inadequate and requires a criminal disclosure check be conducted on each approved person as part of the approval process.

Where do I go to obtain a basic criminal disclosure check?

To reduce the administrative burden, data privacy risk and remove any paper-based process, ICAS have worked with the team behind Amiqus ID. Through Amiqus ID, firms can submit Basic Disclosure applications via their own secure and centralised online account on a firm by firm basis.

Please see www.amiqus.co/ICAS for further information.

Anti-money Laundering Risk Assessment

The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 require all firms to conduct a firm-wide AML risk assessment.

ICAS has produced guidance on how to conduct these reviews, along with a template checklist and worked-case studies, with the view to supporting practitioners in conducting their first risk assessment. These forms are not mandatory and firms are allowed to develop their own template or use a proprietary checklist if preferred.

Firms should, however, ensure that their risk assessment covers the key risk criteria in the regulations.:

  • Clients: consideration of the nature of the clients the firm acts for.
  • Geography: where the clients operate.
  • Services: the nature of the services that the firm provide the clients.
  • Transactions: the nature of transactions.
  • Delivery Channels: the firm’s means of delivering services.

If you do not have your risk assessment at the time of filling out your AML Approved Person Application Form you may submit this at a later day by contacting the Regulatory Authorisation Team. More information is available in our AML News.

Have questions? Contact our Regulations Team