 The Australian Government has introduced a Bill into Parliament providing for a 15 month transition period for the new threshold transaction, international funds transfer instruction and suspicious matter reporting obligations due to come into effect on 12 December 2008.
Reporting entities who currently report to AUSTRAC under the Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988 (FTR Act) will be able to continue to report in the same way until such time as they are compliant with the new requirements but not later than 11 March 2010. AUSTRAC has an expectation that reporting entities will be compliant with the new obligations on 12 December 2008, but recognizes that for various reasons, some may not be fully compliant by that date.
AUSTRAC has stated that it expects any entities who are not fully compliant by the due date will be taking reasonable steps to be compliant during the transition period.
AUSTRAC has issued a Draft Reporting Implementation Policy, which is subject to the Draft Bill being passed. In essence:-
• All reporting entities will be required to submit reports to AUSTRAC electronically where they have the technical means to do so and their reporting volumes exceed 50 forms per year (all types aggregated).
• Reporting entities with reporting volumes of less than 50 forms per year (all types aggregated) are encouraged to report electronically but are not obliged to do so.
• From 12 December 2008, all regulated entities (reporting entities and cash dealers as defined under the FTR Act) submitting reports electronically under both the AML/CTF Act and the FTR Act will be required to do so via AUSTRAC Online (online.austrac.gov.au).
AUSTRAC has published electronic reporting file format specifications for each report type to assist reporting entities in developing their file extraction programs. Members should consult the Draft Policy for further details.
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