CNV: New Regulations to Prevent Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Given the differences initially raised between Resolution No. 21/2018 and No. 156/2016 of the Financial Information Unit (the “UIF Resolutions”) and the Argentine Securities and Exchange Commission (the “CNV”, after its acronym in Spanish) Rules (N.T. 2013 and amendments), the CNV adjusted its regulations to include as obliged subjects: (i) natural and/or legal persons registered within the CNV that act in the placement of common investment funds or other collective investment products; (ii) collective financing platforms; and (iii) global investment advisory agents (Agentes Asesores Globales de Inversión). In turn, the Resolution clarified that liquidation and compensation agents - direct participants - acting on their own account and with their own funds will not be considered to be obliged subjects, provided that their actions are limited to registering futures and options contracts negotiated in markets supervised by the CNV.

With this Resolution, the obliged subjects must submit to the CNV via the CNV’s financial information highway (the “AIF”, after its acronym in Spanish), documentation regarding compliance with the rules on Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (the “PLA/FT", after its acronym in Spanish). For instance, while prior to the Resolution, the obliged subjects only had to inform the compliance officer's data, now they must submit a PLA/FT and take the annual internal training program, among others.

On the other hand, the regulations regarding the reception and delivery of funds by the liquidation and compensation agents and the natural and/or legal persons registered with the CNV acting in the placement of common investment funds or other collective investment products to customers (the “Placers”) were modified. In this sense, both for customer receipts and for payments to customers, it was authorized the transfers from the Uniform Virtual Code (the “CVU”, after its acronym in Spanish) that relates to the client's Tax Identity number, provided that “identification and traceability transfers of funds from open accounts in entities of the country authorized by the BCRA belonging to a payment service provider (PSP) are allowed”. With respect to payments to customers, the Placers are allowed, on behalf of their clients, to transfer the funds to bank accounts owned by a payment service provider.

In this way, the Resolution has authorized the client funds related to an investment to be transferred to and from a virtual wallet manager, updating its regulations to the newly available technological tools.