Azərbaycan Respublikası Mərkəzi Bankı Banklara Nəzarət Departamenti

Supervision Department - AML/CFT Training 
CIP - High Risk Customers and PEPs - EDD Monitoring
 
- Transaction monitoring which takes account of up-
to-date CDD information including expected 
activity, source of wealth and source of funds.   
- Regularly reviewing PEP relationships at a senior 
level based on a full and balanced assessment of the 
source of wealth of the PEP.   
- Monitoring new clients more closely to confirm or 
amend the expected account activity.   
- A risk-based framework for assessing the 
necessary frequency of relationship reviews and the 
degree of scrutiny required for transaction 
monitoring.   
- Proactively following up gaps in, and updating, 
CDD during the course of a relationship.   
- Ensuring transaction monitoring systems are 
properly calibrated to identify higher risk 
transactions and reduce false positives.   
- 
Keeping good records and a clear audit trail of 
internal suspicion reports sent to the MLRO, 
whether or not they are finally disclosed to The 
FMS.   
- A good knowledge among key AML staff of a 
bank‘s highest risk/PEP customers.   
- More senior involvement in resolving alerts raised 
for transactions on higher risk or PEP customer 
accounts, including ensuring adequate explanation 
and, where necessary, corroboration of unusual 
transactions from risk managers and/or customers.   
- Global consistency when deciding whether to keep 
or exit relationships with high-risk customers and 
PEPs.   
- Assessing RMs‘ performance on ongoing 
monitoring and feeding this into their annual 
performance assessment and pay review.   
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Lower transaction monitoring alert 
thresholds for higher risk customers.   
 
- Failing to carry out regular reviews of high-risk 
and PEP customers in order to update CDD.   
- Reviews carried out by RMs with no independent 
assessment by money laundering or compliance 
professionals of the quality or validity of the review.   
- Failing to disclose suspicious transactions to The 
FMS.   
- Failing to seek consent from The FMS on 
suspicious transactions before processing them.   
- Unwarranted delay between identifying suspicious 
transactions and disclosure to The FMS.   
- Treating annual reviews as a tick-box exercise and 
copying information from the previous review.   
- Annual reviews which fail to assess AML risk and 
instead focus on business issues such as sales or debt 
repayment.   
- 
Failing to apply enhanced ongoing monitoring 
techniques to high-risk clients and PEPs.   
- Failing to update CDD based on actual 
transactional experience.   
- Allowing junior or inexperienced staff to play a 
key role in ongoing monitoring of high-risk and PEP 
customers.   
- Failing to apply sufficient challenge to 
explanations from risk managers and customers 
about unusual transactions.   
- Risk Managers failing to provide timely responses 
to alerts raised on transaction monitoring systems.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Examples of GOOD Practice
 
2
 
Examples of POOR practice
 

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Supervision Department - AML/CFT Training 
CIP - Risk Assessment - Correspondent Banking
 
- Regularly assessments of correspondent banking 
risks taking into account various money laundering 
risk factors such as the country (and its AML 
regime); ownership/management structure 
(including the possible impact/influence that 
ultimate beneficial owners with political 
connections may have); products/operations; 
transaction volumes; market segments; the quality 
of the respondent‘s AML systems and controls and 
any adverse information known about the 
respondent. 
- More robust monitoring of respondents identified 
as presenting a higher risk.   
- Risk scores that drive the frequency of relationship 
reviews.   
- Taking into consideration publicly available 
information from national government bodies and 
non-governmental organizations and other credible 
sources.   
 
 
-
 Failing to consider the money-laundering risks of 
correspondent relationships.   
- Inadequate or no documented policies and 
procedures setting out how to deal with respondents.   
- Applying a ‗one size fits all‘ approach to due 
diligence with no assessment of the risks of doing 
business with respondents located in higher risk 
countries.   
- Failing to prioritize higher risk customers and 
transactions for review.   
- Failing to take into account high-risk business 
types such as money service businesses and offshore 
banks. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Examples of GOOD Practice
 
2
 
Examples of POOR practice
 

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Supervision Department - AML/CFT Training 
CIP - Correspondent Banking - New Accounts
 
- Assigning clear responsibility for the CDD process 
and the gathering of relevant documentation.   
- EDD for respondents that present greater risks or 
where there is less publicly available information 
about the respondent.   
- Gathering enough information to understand client 
details; ownership and management; products and 
offerings; transaction volumes and values; client 
market segments; client reputation; as well as the 
AML control environment.   
- Screening the names of senior managers, owners 
and controllers of respondent banks to identify PEPs 
and assessing the risk that identified PEPs pose.   
- Independent quality assurance work to ensure that 
CDD standards are up to required standards 
consistently across the bank.   
- Discussing with overseas regulators and other 
relevant bodies about the AML regime in a 
respondent‘s home country.   
- Identifying risk in particular business areas (eg. 
informal value transfer such as ‗hawala‘, tax 
evasion, corruption) through discussions with 
overseas regulators.   
- Visiting, or otherwise liaising discuss with,   
respondent banks to discuss AML issues and gather 
CDD information.   
- Gathering information about procedures at 
respondent financial institutions for sanctions 
screening and identifying/managing PEPs.   
- Understanding respondents‘ processes for 
monitoring account activity and reporting suspicious 
activity.   
- 
Requesting details of how respondents manage 
their own correspondent banking 
relationships.   
 
 
- Inadequate CDD on parent banks and/or group 
affiliates, particularly if the respondent is based in a 
high-risk jurisdiction.   
- Collecting CDD information but failing to assess 
the risks.   
- Over-relying on the Wolfsberg Group AML 
questionnaire.   
- Failing to follow up on outstanding information 
that has been requested during the CDD process.   
- Failing to follow up on issues identified during   
the CDD process.   
- Relying on parent banks to conduct CDD for a 
correspondent account and taking no steps to ensure 
this has been done.   
- Collecting AML policies etc but making no effort 
to assess them.   
- Having no information on file for expected activity 
volumes and values.   
- Failing to consider adverse information about the 
respondent or individuals connected with it.   
- No senior management involvement in the 
approval process for new correspondent bank 
relationships or existing relationships being 
reviewed.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Examples of GOOD Practice
 
2
 
Examples of POOR practice
 

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