New legislation on the way
After the release of the “Panama Papers” the Government has decided to step up the pace of new anti-money laundering legislation.
This comes in the wake of allegations that some of the 11,000 foreign trusts registered in New Zealand have been used to launder money.
Stuff.co.nz reports that Justice Minister Amy Adams confirms that the legislation is being accelerated but will “take longer than five minutes to be developed”.
“It’s an extensive regime across a number of New Zealand professionals,” she said.
“It involves potentially setting up another reporting entity to oversee it. We’ll have to go through all of that and work out exactly how it’s structured, the compliance impacts and the reporting framework.”
Work on the legislation began in the middle of last year, but public pressure after the release of the Panama Papers has meant the legislation is now a priority.
AMP Australia clamps down on foreign borrowers
Concern around money laundering has prompted AMP Australia to look at banning mortgage lending to most foreign borrowers.
This will not affect new Zealanders but advice from AMP to brokers now classifies “unacceptable borrower types” as “non-resident” borrowers unless a spouse or de-facto partner is a citizen or permanent resident of Australia or New Zealand and a borrower of the loan.