Home > Advice & Services > Businesses and organisations > NZ Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) > Who Are Reporting Entities and Sector Supervisors?

Who Are Reporting Entities and Sector Supervisors?

The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act) came into force on 30 June 2013.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Act 2017 introduced new obligations, increased the number of reporting entities and report types that need to be sent to the New Zealand Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

The FIU receives information from reporting entities and government agencies in relation to:

  • Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) - General activity reported as suspicious, where no transaction has taken place
  • Suspicious Transaction Reports (STR) - Activity reported as suspicious, that includes transaction/s
  • Large Cash Transaction (LCT) – Transactions involving physical currency (cash and coin) equal to or above NZD $ 10,000.00 (note the submission of this report is required due to the transaction meeting the prescribed threshold, if a reporting entity has suspicions with regards to the transaction they are also required to submit an STR in addition to an LCT)
  • International Funds Transfer (IFT) - International Funds Transfer – At least the ordering, intermediary or beneficiary institution is outside New Zealand and meets the threshold of NZ$1000 or more

The FIU also receives information from domestic and international partner agencies.

Reporting Entities

Reporting Entities are businesses supervised under Section 5 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009.

Reporting entities need to be familiar with their obligations under the AML/CFT Act.  These obligations can include:

  • undertaking Prescribed Transaction Reporting
  • undertaking Suspicious Activity Reporting
  • carrying out an assessment of the money laundering and terrorism financing risk they may reasonably expect to face
  • establishing, implementing and maintaining an AML/CFT compliance programme that includes internal procedures, policies and controls that will detect, manage and mitigate the risk(s) assessed above
  • carrying out customer due diligence (CDD), which includes customer identification and verification and ongoing CDD
  • record keeping

Reporting entities need to confirm their reporting obligations with their Sector Supervisors in the first instance.

All relevant acts and regulations are available from the New Zealand Legislation website.

Sector Supervisors

Businesses that are captured by the AML/CFT Act are regulated by one of three Sector Supervisors.

There are three agencies that currently supervise and monitor REs’ compliance with the AML/CFT Act, they are:

  1. Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ)
  2. Financial Markets Authority (FMA)
  3. Department of Internal Affairs (DIA)

Reporting entities should contact their sector supervisor to confirm their reporting obligations before contacting the FIU.