PANAMA

On July 6, the Superintendency of Non-Financial Entities issued, through the Official Gazette, a resolution which establishes guidelines and procedures to guide Non-Financial Entities (NFC) in the examination of unusual operations and reporting of suspicious operations. The guidelines seek to facilitate the tasks of NFCs in procedures for the identification, analysis and documentation of unusual operations, until determining or ruling out suspicious operations. The regulation is already in force. 

Regarding the content of the resolution, its purpose is to optimize the practice, detection and reporting of Suspicious Transactions (STR). To this end, it provides for administrative and operational structural budgets, stages to be considered for reporting, conditions for optimal monitoring, among other points. The Superintendency expects that its implementation will contribute to the integrity of the financial system and the economy in Panama.

The resolution is in line with Law 23 of 2015, which adopts measures to prevent money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (BC/FT/FPADM), and whose Article 41 establishes the obligation to examine unusual facts, operations or transactions, empowering the Superintendency of Non-Financial Subjects to issue guidelines and procedures for compliance with such regulations.