Amendments to the Instructions of the Final Investigation Unit of El Salvador  

By Resolution number 476, dated September 5th, 2023, the Attorney General approved a new set of amendments to the Instructions for the Prevention, Detection and Control of Asset and Money Laundering, Financing of Terrorism and Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (the "Instructions").

The main aspects that must be considered regarding such amendments are the following:

On the obligation that was originally established regarding the appointment of an external compliance auditor for the prevention of AML/FT/FPWMD:

Pursuant to the amendment to Article 8 of the Instructions, the Obligated Subjects may carry out the annual evaluation on the compliance and effectiveness of the applicable standards, policies and procedures through the Internal Auditor, who will issue a report addressed to the highest governing body of the Obligated Subject. If there is no Internal Auditor, the evaluation shall be performed by the External Auditor that the Obligated Subjects already appoint based on the Code of Commerce -External Financial Auditor-, who in such case shall issue a "management letter". The above implies that it will not be necessary to appoint an independent external auditor for this purpose.

On the other hand, the new wording of Article 9 of the Instructions refers only to the Obligated Subjects under the supervision of the Superintendency of the Financial System, who must carry out the evaluation of the management and applicable provisions on AML/FT/FPWMD prevention through the External Auditor, who will issue a report addressed to the Board of Directors, Senior Management and the Compliance Officer.

Reduction of requirements applicable to the profile of the Compliance Designee:

By amendment to Article 72 of the Instructions, the requirement of having an academic degree at university level of the Compliance Designee profile has been deleted for most of the Obligated Subjects, keeping such requirement, with the rest of the requirements originally established, only for the following Obligated Subjects: microfinance companies, credit unions and non-bank financial intermediaries, credit card issuing companies, co-issuers and related groups, persons who carry out systematic or substantial transfers of funds, casinos and gambling houses, dealers of metals and precious stones, and real estate companies and intermediaries.

Travel rule:

It establishes the minimum information required by financial institutions for the complementary reports of international and local wire transfer transactions.

Other matters:

New elements related to the application of due diligence measures, the identification of beneficial owners and measures on the beneficiaries of insurance policies are also incorporated.

The amendments to the Instructions will become effective 8 days after their publication in the Official Gazette, which we expect to take place in the next few days.

We remain at your service for any questions you may have in this regard.

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