Monetary Authority (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2024 (Act 17 of 2024)

Summary

This is an amending Act that changes the Monetary Authority Act (2020 Revision), the law establishing CIMA's general powers, including its power to charge fees. It renumbers the Parts of the principal Act (Roman numerals to Arabic numerals) as a housekeeping change, and it substantially rewrites section 46 and Schedule 2 dealing with fees for administrative services provided by CIMA.

The core substantive change is that CIMA's fee-charging power under section 46 is extended beyond "licensees" to also cover any "person registered under any of the regulatory laws" (and members of the public who request services), and fees may now be expressly prescribed as non-refundable. Schedule 2 is repealed and replaced with a detailed table of specific administrative services and the corresponding KYD fee for each, almost all marked non-refundable.

• Confirmation letters
• Director/senior officer approvals
• Changes in shareholding
• Licence variations
• Extensions for filing audited financials or annual returns
• Exemption/waiver applications
• Use of restricted words
• Auditor sign-off approvals
• Dividend/distribution applications
• New branch/subsidiary applications
• Inspection-finding remediation extensions

The Act also validates, retroactively, any fees that CIMA charged, collected or received from registered persons before this Act commenced even though it lacked clear statutory authority at the time, treating those collections as lawful. It preserves the effect of any court order or determination already made about such improperly charged fees, and it includes a transitional rule making fees refundable for any administrative service application that was still pending on the day immediately before the Act's commencement, despite the new non-refundable rule otherwise applying.

The Act applies to all persons and entities licensed or registered under any of the regulatory laws administered by CIMA (i.e., across CIMA's regulated sectors), as well as members of the public requesting administrative services from CIMA. It comes into force on a date to be appointed by Cabinet Order, which is not stated in the text itself.

Key obligations

• Licensees, persons registered under any of the regulatory laws, and members of the public requesting administrative services from CIMA must pay the fees set out in the new Schedule 2 for each listed administrative service.
• Fees set out in Schedule 2 (or prescribed by regulations under section 46(1)) may be charged as non-refundable, and payers should expect no refund once such a fee is paid, except as provided by the transitional rule.
• For any administrative service application that was pending on the day immediately before the Act's commencement, the fee for that application is refundable notwithstanding the general non-refundable rule.
• Persons who paid or from whom CIMA collected fees without prior statutory authority before commencement must treat those payments as validly and lawfully charged, paid and collected (no restitution claim arises from lack of statutory authority alone), except where a court has already made an order or determination on the matter, which remains unaffected.

Applies to

licensees, persons registered under any of the regulatory laws, members of the public requesting administrative services from CIMA, banks incorporated under the Companies Act (2023 Revision), auditors seeking local audit sign-off approval

Deadlines

• such date as may be appointed by Order made by the Cabinet: Commencement date of the Act (section 1(2)); the fee changes, Schedule 2 replacement, and validation provisions take effect from this appointed date.
• the day immediately preceding the commencement of this amending and validating Act: Transitional cut-off: the fee for any administrative service application pending as of this date remains refundable despite the new non-refundable rule.

Related documents

• This document amends Monetary Authority Law (2020 Revision)
• Monetary Authority (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2024 (Commencement) Order, 2024 (SL 55 of 2024) commences this document