Professional services AML/CTF obligations

Why professional services?

Professionals like accountants, lawyers, and conveyancers often help clients manage money, set up companies, or buy high-value assets. Criminals seek out these professionals—sometimes unwittingly—to help them create complex corporate structures or legal trusts that hide the illegal origins of their wealth.

Which activities are designated?

Not all professional work is caught by the laws. Providing general legal advice or tax return preparation is usually exempt. However, if you act as a "gatekeeper"—for example, by managing client funds, creating or managing companies/trusts, acting as a nominee director, or organizing contributions for creating companies—you are providing a designated service.

What about Legal Professional Privilege?

The new laws have been carefully drafted to interact with Legal Professional Privilege (LPP). While you must comply with reporting obligations (like filing Suspicious Matter Reports), you are not required to disclose information if doing so would breach valid LPP. However, simply acting as a financial gatekeeper does not automatically grant privilege to a transaction.

What must professionals do?

If you provide designated services, your firm must enroll with AUSTRAC. You need an active AML/CTF program tailored to your specific client base, and you must conduct rigorous Customer Due Diligence. Crucially, you must peel back the layers of any corporate clients to verify the true "Beneficial Owners" before proceeding with the service.