If your business is captured under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act) you are required to assess your exposure to financial crime and implement effective mitigation strategies. Two critical documents underpin this: the risk assessment and the compliance programme.
Since 1 June 2025, Individual Customer Risk-Rating (ICRR) was mandated for all reporting entities under New Zealand’s AML/CFT framework – both at onboarding, and to be considered as part of ongoing Customer Due Diligence (CDD).
Customer Due Diligence (CDD) Outsourcing means handing over some or all your CDD to a trusted partner. Instead of managing the process entirely in-house, you can collaborate with experts on things like onboarding checks and risk-rating to ongoing monitoring and record keeping.
As we approach the next reporting cycle, now is a good time to start preparing your AML/CFT annual report.
Join us in celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the AML Summit!
Both Customer Due Diligence (CDD) and Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) are key components of AML/CFT regulations that are designed to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. These processes are used by reporting entities to assess and verify the identity of their customers.
As of June 2025, new Anti-Money Laundering regulations will require all Reporting Entities to adopt a Customer Risk-Rating process, marking a shift towards a more risk-based approach to financial crime prevention.
Each reporting entity under the AML legislation must lodge their annual AML/CFT report with their Supervisor any time between the 1st of July to the 31st of August. Remember, there are no extensions to this deadline.
“Money laundering” – it calls to mind laundromats and giant bags of cash, or maybe the Netflix series Ozark. For most people it’s a vague concept that’s ‘bad’, with no understanding of what it is and how it actually happens. But it’s a big problem: in New Zealand alone, around $1 billion is laundered every year, while globally the figure is estimated to be $4 trillion.
The AMLHUB outsourcing team manages the outsourcing for many New Zealand reporting entities. We have good oversight over the things that go right, and the ways it can go wrong.
Keep reading to learn about the six most common mistakes made in customer due diligence (CDD), and how you can avoid them. Plus, download your copy of the ID Document Guide.
This blog was updated 12 February, 2024.
