Increase in monetary limits for know your customer requirements
Some of the monetary limits under the Regulation on Measures Regarding Prevention of Laundering Proceeds of Crime and Financing of Terrorism (published in the Official Gazette dated 09/01/2008 with the number 26751) (“Regulation”), with respect to customer identification requirements and wire transfer limitations are increased to be effective as of February 1, 2023.
Regarding customer identification, obliged parties shall identify their customers or those who act on behalf or for the benefit of their customers by receiving their identification information and verifying it and take necessary measures for revealing the beneficial owner of the transaction if the amount of a single transaction or the total amount of multiple linked transactions is equal to or more than TL 185,000. Previous threshold was TL 85,000.
Likewise, in wire transfers, the limit applicable to information requirement is increased to TL 15,000 from TL 7,500. Henceforward, (a) name and surname, title of the legal person registered to trade registry, full name of the other legal persons and unincorporated organizations, (b) account number or reference number of the transaction where no account number exists and (c) the address or birth of place and date or at least one of the numbers among TR-ID number, passport number, tax ID number, of the sender financial institution, needs to identified, included and verified in the cross border and domestic wire transfer messages amounting to or exceeding TL 15,000. (a) and (b) shall also be included in the wire transfer messages for the recipient as well.
Some of the obligors listed under the Regulation are banks, financing and factoring companies, capital markets brokerage and portfolio management companies, payment service providers and electronic money institutions, investment partnerships, insurance, reinsurance and pension companies, and insurance and reinsurance brokers, financial leasing companies, certified financial advisors, those who buy and sell immovables for trading purposes and intermediaries of these transactions and those who deal with purchase and sale of any kind of sea, air and land transportation vehicles.
