Australian regulator ASIC has earlier today released its guidance for Australian financial service (AFS) licensees about how they can mitigate the risks to their clients and business of share sale fraud.
Share sale fraud is the fraudulent activity of a person who is not who they claim to be, selling shares that do not belong to them.
According to the regulator, there’s been a rise in the share sale fraud lately, primarily in connection with issuer-sponsored holdings. ASIC is providing guidance in Information Sheet 237 Protecting against share sale fraud (INFO 237) to AFS licensees who may be vulnerable to share sale fraud.
The Information Sheet provides guidance in relation to ASIC’s expectations around licensees’ management of:
- one-off share sales
- customer due diligence
- ongoing customer due diligence
- intermediary clients
- anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) training
- reporting of suspicious matters.