Philippines to launch new Anti-Money Laundering rules

Philippines Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) has announced it will release a new regulatory framework for the casino industry before the end of October.

The government body, in charge of tackling the threat of money laundering in the Philippines, will present the new rules for the regulation of the country’s casinos as ‘covered persons’ under the recently amended Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001.

Since signing the bill back in July, the Anti-Money Laundering unit of the Philippines’ Central Bank had 90 days - until October 27 - to implement the new rules and regulations.

Among those guidelines will be KYC (Know Your Customer) rules, in which the way casinos should comply with anti-money laundering provisions with risk profiles is detailed.

Speaking to local news outlets, AMLC Executive Director Attorney Mel Georgie Racela said: “Based on our timeline, we might be able to issue one week before the deadline. We’re looking at between October 10 and 14 to get approval from our respective boards.

“There are detailed parts of the IRR (but this could take awhile) so the strategy is to issue the IRR first and then we will issue subsequently the guidelines (such as) KYC,” he added. Casinos under the AMCL rules will be forced to conduct KYC procedures, report suspicious transactions, cover cash transactions of approximately $100k and keep records of KYC documents and transactions, among other things.