On 27th March, BAFT, the Wolfsberg Group, and ICC jointly announced the publication of appendices to its 2017 Trade Finance Principles guidance document. The document assists with trade-based money laundering/trade-based financial crime issues, and addresses the due diligence required by global and regional financial institutions of all sizes in the financing of international trade and will now feature information on open account trade and financial institutions’ trade loans. The appendices provide guidance on the specific application of controls by banks in the context of open account trade transactions and specifically elaborate on receivables purchase techniques. They also provide guidance on the application of controls by banks in the context of Financial Institutions Trade Loans (FITL), also called Bank-to-Bank Trade Loans.
