Integrity and trust offices

Trust offices must set up their operational management to the effect that they control identified integrity risks, such as risks of money laundering, evasion of sanctions regulations and corruption.

Customer integrity is another important aspect of a trust office's operations; not only is the trust office and its staff required to behave in such a manner so as to prevent the reputation of the office or the financial markets from being compromised, but the trust office's customers must not pose a risk either. It is the responsibility of the trust office to monitor this. The Act on the Supervision of Trust Offices (Wet toezicht trustkantoren -Wtt) requires trust offices to verify the identity of their customers and the origin and designated use of the assets belonging to those customers. A trust office must be able to detect unusual transactions and report them to FIU-Netherlands where needed. Specific rules on these issues have been laid down in the Regulation on sound operational management(link) relating to the Act on the Supervision of Trust Offices (Regeling integere bedrijfsvoering Wtt – Rib) and the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act (Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en financiering van terrorisme – Wwft) In pursuing soundl operational management, trust offices are expected to uphold unambiguous customer acceptance standards. A trust office should feel comfortable accepting customers and must adjust its risk framework to the integrity risks inherent in accepting specific customers. A trust office must have uniform policies in place with regard to terminating customer relationships, setting out the risks it can still control and defining its risk appetite.

A trust office must prepare a systematic integrity risk analysis, providing an overview of the risks inherent in its activities. It must document the principles underlying integrity risk control in organisational and administrative procedures and measures.

This includes procedures regulating the treatment of staff and setting staff requirements appropriate to their integrity-sensitive positions, and the handling of incidents. Furthermore, a trust office fulfils an important role in terms of complying with domestic and international sanctions legislation.

Supervision of Trust Offices Act(link)
Regulation on ethical operational management pursuant to the Wtt
Apart from the Wtt and subsidiary regulation, trust offices are also within the scope of the following legal provisions.

Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act (Wwft)

Introduction to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act(link)
DNB Guidance on the Wwft and the Sanctions Act(link)

Sanctions Act

Sanctions Act 1977(link)

Announcements

Circular on trust office supervision(link) (March 2011)
Circular on trust office supervision(link) (2005)