AML & CTF Policy

The purpose of this AML & CTF Policy is to ensure that BelleoFX and its staff are able to comply with all legal and regulatory requirements relevant to the prevention of money laundering and financial crime.

The Policy aims to encourage staff to think about potential financial crime risks as they carry out their duties and to be fully aware of the firm’s internal procedures to deter the potential use of BelleoFX for financial crime.

Being used in connection with financial crime involves firms in reputational, legal and regulatory risks. This Policy supports BelleoFX’s Code of Conduct which places emphasis on both the reputation of the firm and the importance of compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations in each jurisdiction in which it does business.

This Policy is approved and endorsed by the Board of BelleoFX. It will be reviewed at least annually, in line with the Annual Risk Assessment and Group requirements, to ensure that it continues to drive effective financial crime risk management.

This policy should be read in conjunction with:

A. The BelleoFX KYC and Due Diligence procedures
B. The BelleoFX on-boarding and Customer Risk Assessment procedures (including PEPs and Sanctions)
C. The BelleoFX Compliance Monitoring procedures

Globally, there has been a long-standing obligation to have effective procedures in place to detect and prevent money laundering. Specifically, BelleoFX is registered Belleo Markets (MU) incorporated in the Republic of Mauritius with registration number 186405 GBC. Company is regulated by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Mauritius as an Investment Dealer (Broker), with a license number GB21027167. BelleoFX (SVG) is registered by Financial Services Authority (FSA) of St. Vincent & The Grenadines as an International Business Company with registration number 26000 BC 2020. Firm to adopt suitable AML policies and procedures. BelleoFX is committed to following all global standards and applicable legislation and has implemented the policies and procedures referred to in the document to ensure we are able to detect and prevent money laundering taking place through the Firm.

Money laundering is the process by which criminals attempt to conceal the true origins and/or ownership of the proceeds, or benefits, of criminal activity. The aim of the process is to achieve a situation where the proceeds of their activities appear legitimate; enabling them to avoid prosecution, conviction and the confiscation of the criminal funds. Financial institutions are used for the purpose of money laundering and therefore employees within the sector must be aware of the regulatory requirements placed both upon the firm they work for and themselves as individuals.

Money laundering is traditionally described as only having 3 basic stages but it is important to remember that these stages do not necessarily occur in every case. Also, the boundaries between them may be blurred or overlap. Money laundering takes many forms and the classic money laundering model does not always apply. For example, someone may handle the benefits of acquisitive crimes (such as theft, fraud or tax evasion) and still be caught by the money laundering definition. Nonetheless, the 3 classic stages of laundering are outlined briefly below:

Placement: The physical introduction of cash or other proceeds into the financial system – for example, by depositing cash into a bank account. Layering: The process of moving the proceeds through a number of (sometimes complex) financial transactions, so as to make the audit trail more difficult to trace back.

Examples include:

selling one investment and reinvesting in another; moving the money between different institutions or jurisdictions; and setting up vehicles such as companies and trusts so as to change the apparent ownership of the assets.

It is at the layering stage that BelleoFX is most exposed.

Integration: is is the point at which the funds have been sufficiently distanced from their origin to have achieved the appearance of legitimacy and the money is integrated into the economy

It is at the layering stage that BelleoFX is most at risk although employees should be vigilant for any suspicious behavior by clients. For example:

• trying to make cash payments into their account
• paying money into the account only to withdraw at a later date without any trading activity
• making deposits which exceed the amount they stated they had available for trading on their application forms
• Routing funds through third-party accounts
• Trading without regard for the costs of the transactions;
• Extensive use of overseas accounts or excessive use of complex corporate structures
• Funds in payment of a transaction arriving from an unusual source
• A customer exhibits an unusual level of concern for secrecy, particularly with regard to the customer's identity, type of business or source of assets
• A corporate customer lacks general knowledge of its own industry
• A customer is unconcerned with risks, commissions or other costs associated with trading
• A customer appears to be acting as an agent for another entity or individual but is evasive about the identity of the other entity or individual (except situations involving the identity of ownership interests in a collective investment vehicle)
• A customer is from, or has accounts in a country identified as, a haven for bank secrecy, money laundering or narcotics production
• A customer engages in extensive, sudden or unexplained wire activity (especially wire transfers involving countries with bank secrecy laws)
• A customer makes a funds deposit followed by a request that the money be wired out or transferred to a third party, or to another firm, without any apparent business purpose
• trading patterns which do not fit those ascertained from the trading experience section of their application forms

Any suspicions must be reported to Momin Shaikh, the Head of Compliance. It is his duty as AML/CTF reporting officer of BelleoFX to investigate all suspicions and decide whether to escalate the details to external agencies and regulators where applicable.

Having sufficient information about a client is an invaluable tool in the fight against financial crime and when something goes wrong can protect individual firms from reputational and financial risk. Customer due diligence means finding out the intended purpose and nature of the business relationship and identifying the customer and verifying their identity on the basis of documents and/or data from a reliable source. All natural persons and legal entities will be identified and verified as part of the on-boarding process.

BelleoFX has adopted a risk based approach and the important factors that have been considered include the business undertaken along with relevant delivery channels, the customer base and the geographic location of clients.

In addition to AML issues, BelleoFX must also check clients against PEP and Sanction databases, this will be carried out by using relevant on-line systems at the on-boarding stage. Any hits should be referred to Compliance immediately.

The firm must ensure that systems and controls include appropriate training for its employees in relation to money laundering.

At BelleoFX all new starters are required to attend an introductory financial crime presentation provided by the Compliance department. In addition, regular refresher training is provided for existing employees, usually in the form of computer based testing. Ad-hoc training will take place whenever the Compliance Department deems it necessary and updates are provided to staff by the Compliance Department.

Firms must keep a copy of the evidence of each client’s identity (or information as to where a copy of that evidence can be found) or where neither of these is practicable, information that will enable the firm to re-verify the client’s identity. These documents must be kept for five years following the date on which the client ceases to be a client or from the date of his last transaction if there is no formal termination of the relationship. Records should also be kept of each transaction carried out in the course of business for each client; these must be retained for five years from the date on which all activities on that transaction were completed.

Records of any financial crime training given to employees must also be retained. These are stored in soft copy with Compliance.

Terrorism as “the use or threat of action.... designed to influence the government or intimidate the public.... or the use or threat made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause” whereby there is:

• Violence against a person
• Damage to property
• Serious risk to public health or safety
• Interference with an electronic system

The relevance to financial institutions is “terrorist property” and the laundering of such property. It is defined as:

• Money or other property likely to be used for terrorism
• Proceeds of the commission of acts of terrorism
• Proceeds of acts carried out for the purposes of terrorism

There can be considerable similarities between the movement of terrorist property and the laundering of criminal property: some terrorist groups are known to have well-established links with organized criminal activity. However, there are two major differences between terrorist property and criminal property:

• Often only small amounts are required to commit individual terrorist acts, thus increasing the difficulty of tracking the terrorist property
• Terrorists can be funded from legitimately obtained income, including charitable donations, and it is extremely difficult to identify the stage at which legitimate funds become terrorist property

Terrorist organizations can, however, require quite significant funding and property to resource their infrastructure. They often control property and funds from a variety of sources and employ modern techniques to manage these funds, and to move them between jurisdictions.

In combating terrorist financing, the obligation on BelleoFX is to report any suspicious activity to the authorities. This supports the aims of the law enforcement agencies in relation to the financing of terrorism by allowing the freezing of property where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that such property could be used to finance terrorist activity.

Fraud is defined as:
“Any attempt, whether successful or not, to secure an unfair or unlawful gain through deliberate misrepresentation of material facts, or deliberate omission of such facts.”

This wide definition includes fraud committed by clients against BelleoFX, by BelleoFX employees against the firm or against clients, or fraud committed by third parties against clients or the business.

BelleoFX provides its financial services via the internet, with no face to face contact with clients. Its client base extends across many countries, and this increases the complexity of identity fraud and impersonation threats. A large proportion of clients reside in high risk jurisdictions* where anti-fraud regulations are not robust.

However, as the firm does not provide general banking services and credit facilities, it is not as attractive a target to organized criminals involved in fraud as banking or loan-based institutions might be

There are various safeguards in place to prevent fraud occurring at BelleoFX. These include:

Code of Conduct: copy of the Code is included in all new employees BelleoFX Induction Packs. Employees are made fully aware that disciplinary action may be taken if they fail to act “honestly, fairly and with integrity when dealing with clients, customers, counterparties and colleagues.” The Code makes it clear that the reputation of the firm is of the utmost importance and that sound business and market practices must be maintained at all times.

Client Take-On: Client take on standards concern the treatment of particular documentation obtained and the identification of fraud risk during the take on process. Minimum standards for identity verification must be met for all new applications and will not be accepted from prospective clients that represent an unacceptable risk of financial crime.

Client Authentication: Client authentication standards exist to protect genuine clients from impersonation fraud. Instructions from clients will not be acted upon until authentication procedures have been successfully completed and repeated failed authentication attempts will be escalated to Compliance as suspicious and in most circumstances the application will be rejected.

Payment Processes: Payment process standards protect the integrity of payments to assist in preventing external or internal fraud Awareness and Training : Awareness and training standards help to embed a risk-aware culture and provide specialist skills to key staff involved in control processes. Fraud awareness training forms part of the AML induction training provided by Compliance and further, more in depth fraud training will be provided on a regular basis for key roles.

Procedures are also in place to detect and report any fraudulent activity that may have occurred despite the aforementioned safeguards. These include:

Internal Reporting

Should any employee within the company have suspicions that fraud has occurred or may occur, they must report their suspicions to the AML/CTF reporting officer. Once they have done so they have fulfilled their legal obligation and it is for the AML/CTF reporting officer to decide whether the report needs to be reported externally.

“Bribery is the offering of money, services or other valuable items in order to induce someone to do something in return. Bribery is corruption. Corruption is acting dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. It is the unlawful abuse of an official position to the disadvantage of those being served.”

The following procedures are in place at BelleoFX to combat bribery and corruption:

(1) A Whistleblowing Policy which allows employees to report any concerns anonymously

(2) A Gifts and Inducement Policy. At present, all employees should simply follow the instructions below.

“If an employee receives a gift or entertainment from a client, it must be disclosed to the Compliance department as soon as possible. They will assess whether or not it could reasonably be regarded as creating a business obligation on the donor, recipient, or a third party.”

Hospitality expenditure remains legitimate under the new Act provided it is appropriate and proportionate.

(3) Policies are reviewed periodically by Compliance
(4) Training for all staff relating to anti-corruption and bribery
(5) Sanctions and Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) checks are undertaken for every new client as a risk-based approach is not appropriate here. A PEP is a person who has, at any time in the preceding year been entrusted with a prominent public function or is an immediate member of their family or known close associate. All applicants identified as a PEP must be escalated to Compliance and Group Headquarters for approval.

Market abuse relates to “behavior” (action or inaction) by a person acting alone or in a concert party, which occurs in relation to qualifying investments traded on, or admitted to trade on a prescribed market. There are 7 types of abusive behavior.

Although BelleoFX only offers OTC investment instruments and not exchange traded products, the act of market abuse also covers any relevant product of an investment traded in any of the above. As BelleoFX’s prices are derived from the movements in the underlying market, CFDs are caught within the market abuse regime.

Insider Dealing - where an insider deals or attempts to deal in a qualifying or related investment on the basis of inside information.

Improper disclosure - where an insider discloses inside information to another person, other than in proper exercise of their employment.

Misuse of information - where behavior is based upon information not generally available but which is relevant and a “regular market user” would consider to be a failure to observe reasonable standards. (It is possible to misuse information which is not necessarily inside information).

Manipulating Transactions - where behavior consists of placing transactions or orders, other than in accordance with accepted market practice, which gives a false or misleading impression of demand/supply/prices/valuations.

Manipulating Devices - where behavior consists of placing transactions or orders which employ fictitious devices or other forms of deception.

Dissemination - where behavior consists of disseminating information, which is likely to give a false or misleading impression of an investment by a person who knew that the information was false/misleading.

Distortion - where behavior gives the regular user a false or misleading impression of demand/supply/price/value or where it would be considered a failure to observe standards of behavior expected by a person of their position

1.A client opens an account and immediately gives an order to conduct a significant transaction in a particular security, especially if the client is insistent that the order is carried out very urgently.

2.A transaction is significantly out of line with the client’s previous investment behavior e.g. type of security, amount invested, size of order

3.There is unusual trading in the shares of a company before the announcement of price sensitive information relating to the company

4.An employee’s own account transaction is timed just before clients’ transactions and related orders in the same financial instrument

5.An order will, because of its size in relation to the market in that security, clearly have a significant impact on the supply or demand for or the price or value of the security
This list is not exhaustive; it just provides some examples of what constitutes suspicious activity.

As with any other type of suspicious activity, it is very important that any suspicions relating to market abuse are reported to the AML/CTF reporting officer(or another member of Compliance) without delay.

This Policy is approved and endorsed by the Board, who also review and approve the annual Risk Assessment, AML issues are reported on a quarterly basis to the risk committee.

BelleoFX has designated a senior employee as the AML/CTF reporting office

The AML/CTF reporting officer must

• Provide the Board with an annual report on the firm’s systems and controls in place to prevent money laundering
• Provide the Board with an annual ‘AML Risk Assessment’. This provides an outline of the major AML and financial crime risks posed to BelleoFX and how they are being managed
• Receive internal suspicion reports concerning AML, Terrorist Financing or financial crime
• Investigate and consider those reports, using all of the information available to him, to establish whether he believes they may be well-founded
• Communicate the details of those he believes are well-founded to external agencies and regulators as necessary, including the Financial Intelligence Unit

With regard to BelleoFX being used in connection with financial crime, the Compliance department undertakes a variety of monitoring programmes to prevent this to as great an extent as possible.

This includes taking a weekly sample of client accounts that have been opened and a daily check of funds paid into client accounts over qualifying thresholds for anything suspicious.

The department also exists to provide advice and guidance to the business. Further details of on-going monitoring are included with the BelleoFX Compliance monitoring procedures

BelleoFX does not accept third-party deposits of any kind.
BelleoFX matches each deposit to the account name on file for that customer. BelleoFX reserves the right to refuse processing a transaction at any stage where it believes the transaction to be connected in any way to money laundering or criminal activity. In accordance with international law, BelleoFX is not obligated to inform the client if suspicious activity is reported to any corresponding regulatory or legal Bodies.

You must sign the declaration below, indicating that you have read and agreed to comply with the policies and procedures at BelleoFX to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing and financial crime. Please return this to Compliance.