Together with ICAEW, The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) today released the fourth installment in its Anti-Money Laundering: The Basics educational series: Installment 4: Asset Transfers.
The publication is part of a 6-month short series helping accountants enhance their understanding of how money laundering works, the risks they face, and what they can do to mitigate these risks and make a positive contribution to the public interest. Installment four examines asset transfers, one of the primary ways in which criminals layer or integrate the proceeds of crime into the legitimate economy.
Anti-Money Laundering: The Basics is featured on both the IFAC and ICAEW websites and available for download for free. IFAC is featuring the series on a new landing page alongside other relevant information on anti-money laundering (AML).
To be globally relevant, the Anti-Money Laundering: The Basics series uses the risk-based approach of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog -- as a starting point.
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Earlier today the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) released updates to two previously published international standard support resources:
Agreed-Upon Procedures (AUP) Engagements: A Growth and Value Opportunity (the AUP Publication): Describes AUP engagements, when they are appropriate, and identifies key client benefits. It also covers AUP engagements on financial and non-financial subject matters, provides six short case studies with example procedures that might be applied and two illustration AUP reports from ISRS 4400 (Revised).
Both resources have been updated to reflect International Standard on Related Services 4400 (Revised), Agreed-Upon Procedures Engagements, which was approved by the International Auditing and Assurance Board (IAASB) earlier this year and is effective for agreed-upon procedures engagements for which the terms of engagement are agreed on or after January 1, 2022.
The demand for AUP engagements continues to grow as a broad range of stakeholders, such as regulators, funding bodies, and creditors use agreed-upon procedures reports for a variety reasons. Flexibility is a key benefit of AUP engagements, as they can be tailored to different circumstances and focused on individual items of financial or non-financial subject matters.
One of IFAC’s three strategic objectives is contributing to and promoting the development, adoption, and implementation of high-quality international standards. There are numerous additional guidance and support resources available on the dedicated ‘Supporting International Standards’ section of the IFAC Knowledge Gateway.
The report represents another milestone in the journey to enhancing corporate reporting, and stands to advance the dialogue between companies and their investors and stakeholders through reporting of sustainability-related information.
In September 2020, IFAC published The Way Forward, a call for the creation of an international sustainability standards board. Earlier this month, IFAC issued its response to the IFRS Foundation Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting, where we reiterated our view that the IFRS Foundation should establish a new sustainability standards board alongside the IASB, to focus on reporting requirements that address enterprise value creation, and to deliver at speed by leveraging the expertise and standards that already exist as a result of work by CDP, CDSB, GRI, IIRC, SASB as well as the TCFD.
Today’s report not only provides a valuable starting point for this IFRS initiative, but also clearly demonstrates the collaborative intent and effort of these organizations—now and going forward.
IFAC encourages our members and stakeholders to respond to the IFRS Consultation Paper by December 31. IFAC will continue to speak out on behalf of the global accountancy profession in support of a global solution for reporting sustainability information.
