Keeping in line with Bermuda’s active international effort to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, the Registrar General, in consultation with the National Anti-Money Laundering Committee (NAMLC), have been tasked with monitoring and regulating the charities sector to ensure that these organizations are not being used for money laundering or terrorist financing.
As provided by the Charities Act 2014, one of the main functions of the Registrar is to provide charities with a list of criteria that they will use when determining the risk profiles of Bermuda charities. Below is the criteria that the Registrar will consider when assessing Bermuda charities as low, medium or high risk.
Criteria that will be considered when being assessed:
- charitable purpose ;
- risk of being used by terrorist organization ;
- geographical footprint of the charity - international exposure ;
- exposure to regions with terrorist activities ;
- substantial impact on Bermuda ;
- amount of funds received by the charity (also considered the size of the charity) ;
- disclosures of suspicious transactions ;
- retention and dissipation of the funds (particularly if overseas) ;
- record keeping (donors and recipients) ; and
- the Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Anti Terrorist Financing (ATF) systems and controls that the charity has in place.
The criteria listed above will be taken into consideration by the Registrar and, depending on the response received from each charity, they will be given a low, medium or high risk profile.