Richmond Fiduciary Group Limited (2018-04-12)

Summary

This is a public statement by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) announcing enforcement action against Richmond Fiduciary Group Limited, a licensed fiduciary. Following a 2016 on-site visit and investigation, the Commission found serious historic failings in the firm's AML/CFT compliance, governance and record-keeping, and imposed a financial penalty of £45,500 (after a 30% early-settlement discount) under section 11D of the Financial Services Commission Law, alongside a public statement under section 11C.

• Customer verification failures: The Licensee did not always verify the identity of underlying customers, including high-risk customers and PEPs, from the outset of business relationships.
• Source of wealth/funds: The Licensee often relied on customer assertions about source of wealth or funds without obtaining supporting documentation, particularly for high-risk customers.
• Inadequate ongoing monitoring: The Licensee failed to timely address serious issues raised in periodic relationship risk reviews, in some cases for up to seven years.
• Poor record-keeping: Customer records were inadequate, preventing meaningful periodic risk assessments.
• Non-compliance with Instruction 6 of 2009: Three pre-2009 business relationships still lacked required customer due diligence as of 2017.
• Failure to remediate prior warnings: The firm had been warned since 2013 about similar deficiencies but had not fully resolved them before 2016.
• Breach of licensing minimum criteria: The Commission found breaches of Schedule 1 minimum criteria under the Fiduciaries Law relating to reputation, compliance with Commission instructions, and record-keeping.

The Commission noted mitigating factors, including the Licensee's cooperation, an extensive remediation programme begun in January 2016 (largely completed by March 2018), strengthened compliance staffing and governance, and early settlement, which reduced the penalty. The statement is retrospective and does not itself impose new ongoing requirements beyond the penalty and public censure already applied to this firm.

Applies to

fiduciaries, corporate service providers, trust service providers, licensees under the Fiduciaries Law