Anti Money Laundering & Counter Terrorism Financing Laws

From 1 July 2026, the new Australian anti money laundering and counter terrorism financing (AML/CTF) regime will apply to accounting firms, real estate agents and law firms, including us.

Accountants often act as “trusted gatekeepers” because they help set up corporate structures, manage trusts, and facilitate transactions. To prevent criminals from exploiting this, accountants are classified as reporting entities if they provide any of the following “designated services”:

• Assisting with the sale or purchase of an entity or business

• Assisting with the creation, operation, or restructuring of an entity (like a company or trust)
• Acting as (or arranging for someone to act as) a director, secretary, trustee, or nominee shareholder
• Dealing with money or property on behalf of a client

General tax preparation, tax planning, bookkeeping and general business advice are excluded and not considered a designated service.

What we are required to do:

We are required to undertake identity checks, understand your request and its purpose, and assess the risk of money laundering and other financial crime before we undertake the work for you.

What does this mean for you?

A key change is that we are required to start asking you for more information. Depending on your structure, this will include information about:

• your identity and the identity of beneficial owners; and
• who owns and controls you. We may also have to ask for documents related to this, like your constitution or trust deeds.

In some cases, we will be required to ask how the transaction will be funded and about your source of wealth.

We are required to keep this information up-to-date and continue to monitor the risk of money laundering and other financial crime as specific services are requested.

Your information

We will use a secure electronic platform to collect and verify your identity. By using this secure platform, your identity documents are not physically retained in our client files.

We are aiming to keep this process as efficient and streamlined as possible for you. Please understand that processing times may be impacted by any delays in providing the relevant identity check or additional information requested.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your Accountant.