Transcript:
U.S. firms are concerned and paying attention to due diligence checks and anti-money laundering because despite the Enablers Act not passing in 2022, it’s best practice to understand what clients you’re onboarding and what types of work you’re conducting for those clients. It protects reputational risk and it also gives clients assurances that the firms that are representing them have robust measures in place to conduct these checks. So despite those regulations not yet in place in the U.S., there is a growing attention to making sure that those checks are in place, and also checking things like financial risk, which are important considerations as part of client onboarding.
Those firms that have been proactive in putting in place measures to conduct due diligence checks and AML checks on their clients and incoming work will be further ahead, and that approach seems very sensible given that these regulations may be coming. Those that may not yet have taken any action there will find that there’s more of a catch up to do, to put the mechanisms in place to ensure that checks are in place time for these regulations coming in. There can be quite considerable levels of work involved in that, you know, having skilled staff and systems in place, policies, procedures, and training. So the earlier that firms more proactively think about getting ahead of that, the better.