The short answer
AUSTRAC publishes program starter kits for accountants, conveyancers, jewellers, legal professionals and real estate agents. Each kit says who it is for. If a business has every listed characteristic, AUSTRAC says the kit is suitable for it.
If it does not, AUSTRAC says the business has to assess whether the kit is appropriate and what to change, and cannot rely on the kit to meet AUSTRAC’s regulatory expectations of an appropriate program. Parts of the kit may still be adapted into the business’s own program.
A kit is a starting point either way. AUSTRAC describes the kits as practical guidance, not a substitute for legal advice. Using a kit, or this site’s assessment, does not confirm compliance.
Sources: AUSTRAC: Index of the five program starter kits; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who is the starter kit for; If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your business doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your business doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; closing notice.
- Find your sector’s kit
Accountant, conveyancer, jeweller, legal profession or real estate.
- Compare every characteristic
Read the “who the starter kit is for” list on the getting-started page.
- All characteristics met
AUSTRAC says the kit is suitable. Customise it to your business.
- One or more not met
Assess what to change. AUSTRAC says you cannot rely on the kit as it stands.
Check the kit’s suitability list first
The lists differ by sector and can change. A kit is guidance and does not confirm compliance.
Meets every characteristic? Yes: Kit is suitable. Customise it.. No: Adapt it or build your own.
What the five suitability lists share
The lists differ by sector. Six characteristics appear in all five: 15 or fewer personnel, counting administrative staff; mostly individual customers who are Australian residents; no regular dealings with high-risk customers; no fully remote self-service; not acquiring all or part of another business or taking over its customers; and not part of a large reporting group, foreign branch or subsidiary.
AUSTRAC says large businesses are highly likely to face different and more complex ML/TF risks than the kits address, and that these generally call for stronger or additional controls.
Sources: AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; AUSTRAC: Who is the starter kit for; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who is the starter kit for; If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your business doesn’t meet all these characteristics; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If your business doesn’t meet all these characteristics.
Conditions that depend on your services
Each list also describes the services the kit covers. The real estate kit is designed for a business whose only designated service is brokering real estate. The jeweller kit is designed for one designated service too: buying or selling precious goods in physical currency transactions, including linked transactions, valued at $10,000 or more. Both say a business that provides other designated services has to adapt its risk assessment and program to include them.
The conveyancing, accounting and legal kits are designed for practices that provide only the professional services named on each page. AUSTRAC says the legal profession kit can be adapted to mixed practices, including those doing both conveyancing and other professional services. Read the list for your own sector on the AUSTRAC page before relying on this summary.
Sources: AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If you provide other services such as conveyancing or selling businesses; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; If you provide other services such as selling bullion or providing loans; AUSTRAC: Who is the starter kit for; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for; AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for.
What a kit gives you, and what you still do
AUSTRAC says each kit includes a risk assessment covering common risks for the sector, policies, processes and forms. Once customised to the business, these documents together form its AML/CTF program.
Customising is the business’s work. AUSTRAC says a program has to reflect the size, nature and complexity of the business and the risks it faces.
Sources: AUSTRAC: What’s in the starter kit; AUSTRAC: What’s in the starter kit; AUSTRAC: What’s in the starter kit; AUSTRAC: What’s in the starter kit; AUSTRAC: What’s in the starter kit; AUSTRAC: If your practice doesn’t meet all these characteristics; closing notice.
If you build your own program
A business outside the suitability list can still borrow from a kit, write its own program, or engage someone to help. In its outsourcing guidance, AUSTRAC expects businesses to avoid template or global programs used without amendment, because they are generally not tailored to the business or to Australian obligations.
AUSTRAC’s example performance targets for an outsourced program include a risk assessment informed by the business’s own services, delivery methods, customer types and countries. The business stays responsible for the result whoever writes it.
Source: AUSTRAC: Performance targets; Avoid generic AML/CTF programs.
Invented example: one characteristic out
A fictional conveyancing practice has nine staff and mostly local individual clients. Once or twice a year it helps a client buy property overseas. The conveyancing kit lists not assisting with overseas property among its characteristics.
The owner might note which characteristic is not met, consider what extra risks overseas property adds, and adapt the kit’s risk assessment and procedures before using them. These are suggested steps for the example. They do not show that the practice’s program is appropriate.
Source: AUSTRAC: Who the starter kit is for.