The Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) is mandated by statute to act as a central agency responsible for requesting, receiving, analyzing, and disseminating financial information concerning suspicious transactions to an investigatory authority, supervisory authority, or comparable body. This information is required by or under any enactment to counter financial offenses. It also includes information about the financing of any activities or transactions related to money laundering, and terrorism. (Ministry of Finance, 2009)
What role does FIA play in the real estate industry?
Firstly, FIA regulates the Real Estate Advisory Council (REAC) which requires Real estate professionals to:
- conduct due diligence by collecting and verifying information on all would be clients before establishing a relationship or completing transactions with them.
- conduct risk assessments of commission of financial offences such as purchasing property as a way of laundering money obtain through illegal means and take appropriate measures to manage and mitigate the identified risk.
In 2019, Botswana was gray listed as a result of risk identified with regards to money laundering and this forced the country to come up with legal changes that will affect real estate clients. In an effort to comply with these regulations REAC encourages real estate professionals to make clients comply with FIA by making sure that:
- KYC (know your customer) documents are in order.
- Current residential addresses
- certified identification documents e.g., National ID’s and Passports
- verified sources of income.
For more information on FIA visit https://shorturl.at/4SiZM
Tempest gold requires all its clients to comply with FIA regulations.