HKMSOA - Members' Circular

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Dear Members:

Through this Circular, our Association would like to take the opportunity to provide all members the latest updates on Association affairs and information relevant to licensed MSOs

Anti-Money Laundering Course (Cantonese)

“AMLO Statutory Requirements and Risk Management” course (Cantonese) co-organized by our Association and Institute of Professional Education and Knowledge (PEAK) will be held on 24 January 2019 (Thursday night). Since sufficient staff training is significantly effective in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, and HKC&ED requires MSOs to receive relevant AML continuous training, our Association encourages MSOs to proactively participate as well as to arrange and encourage their staff to attend our courses so as to ensure that the staffs understand their responsibilities and to grasp the latest development on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-terrorist Financing.

The course only costs MSOA Member HK$490 each. To verify the eligibility to the special discount, applicants must enroll in the course through the Hong Kong Money Service Operators Association. For more details or any queries, please visit our website or call our hotline at 3176 2004.

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HK Customs and Excise Department has issued a circular to Money Service Operators in regards to the New Solution for e-STR Reporting

●	In order to enhance the capacity in suspicious transaction report processing and shorten the time required for STR reporting entitles to receive feedback from JFIU after submitting an STR, the JFIU has recently developed a new solution, “e-STR Submission” (“e-STR”) which will replace the existing STR submission channel “S-box”, tentatively in the 1st quarter of 2019
●	JFIU had rolled out the e-STR in Aug 2018. The purpose is to allow users to make disclosure via an electronic means in a faster and more secure manner. The e-STR also provides additional supporting functions such as retrieval of previous STRs as well as a real-time check of the feedback given by JFIU
●	To expedite the process of submitting STRs, our Association will greatly encourage all Money Service Operators to use e-STR submission as far as possible

HKMA Reprimands JPM HK for Violating AML Ordinance

HKMA announced to reprimand JPMorgan Hong Kong in respect of its contraventions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (AMLO), thus ordering the bank to pay a pecuniary penalty of HK$12.5 million.

The bank failed to establish and maintain effective procedures for identifying and handling wire transfers that did not comply with AMLO... Read More

Move to replace old Hong Kong ID cards

Change to be carried out in phases and according to age groups, with police, immigration officials, lawmakers and city leader in first eligible batch

Chan Tin-Chee, assistant director of personal documentation under the Immigration Department, said it had already issued about 17,000 new smart ID cards from December 10 to 24 2018. Chan encouraged people to make appointments and fill up forms in advance online or by the Immigration Department's mobile app before going to centres for quicker processing. Chan said the centres could handle about 7,700 applications daily, among which an estimated 10 to 20 per cent would be walk-in registrations... Read More

New HK$1,000 banknotes set to debut in HK on Wednesday

HKMA announced the details on Tuesday, revealing that 90 million of the new bills would be available to the public.

The new HK$500 bills - 230 million of them - will be available on January 23, the authority said, about two weeks ahead of the Lunar New Year. Many families like to put brand new banknotes into red packets for the occasion.

Three other denominations - HK$100, HK$50 and HK$20 - will enter circulation between mid-2019 and early 2020, but the issuance dates have not yet been fixed. Members of the public will be able to obtain the new bills... Read More

New $10 bill featuring Viola Desmond to enter circulation

The sister of the late Nova Scotia civil rights pioneer and businesswoman Viola Desmond, Robson said the move to include a black woman on the bill is a "giant step forward" in continuing Desmond's work toward equality.

Desmond was selected to be on the bill after an open call for nominations and a public opinion survey on the Bank of Canada website. Behind her portrait, the banknote also shows a map of Halifax's historic north end, home to one of Canada's oldest black communities and the area where Desmond grew up. The bill is the first vertically oriented banknote in Canada... Read More