Law 23 of April 27, 2015 establishes in its article 47 the obligation to train:
“Obligation to train. The financial reporting entities, non-financial reporting entities and activities carried out by professionals subject to supervision must provide continuous and specific instruction to employees who perform positions related to the treatment, communication and management of relationships with customers and suppliers, receipt of money, processing of transactions, design of products and services and other personnel who work in sensitive areas, such as compliance, risks, human resources, technology and internal audit, which allows them to be updated on the different typologies, cases and regulations of money laundering, financing of terrorism and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The supervisory bodies must inform the National Commission against Money Laundering, Financing of Terrorism and Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction about the guides oriented to the annual training of regulated entities, which they consider appropriate.”
Additionally, the last paragraph of article 42 establishes the following: “Employees must be trained to understand the risks to which they are exposed, the controls that mitigate such risks and the personal and institutional impact of their actions.”
What does this mean?
The law clearly establishes that, if you are a reporting entity or a professional subject to supervision, employees must have at least annual training regarding money laundering to understand the risks and update their knowledge on different typologies, cases or regulations that could affect the company where they work.
Our employees are the first line of defense of the entire operational part of the business; they are the ones who must notice warning signs that can give us further details regarding a transaction that makes us suspect a client’s conduct.
Our human capital is a valuable asset and a very important part of the company, and as a regulated entity, we must involve them in our prevention framework and allow them to contribute and support transparency, through complaint channels, for example, by making them aware of our code of ethics, our values and explaining how their active role will allow us to prevent and establish controls and mitigating factors to prevent our company’s services from being misused in any way.