Compliance
A Place in the Sun Currency is obliged to perform checks on all our clients, their transactions and related parties, to ensure that our service is not used for financial crime. Money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing are serious problems which we are committed to reducing.
This means that we will usually ask you for certain information and documents, depending on the nature of your transactions. We appreciate your assistance in providing these to us to help us satisfy our legal and ethical responsibilities.
How do you verify clients’ identities?
For UK residents, we will run an online ID check to verify your identity. This is free of charge and does not constitute a credit check, although it will leave a “soft” footprint. Usually if you have UK residential status and are on the electoral roll, this will be all that is required in order to satisfy identification requirements. If the check does not verify your identity, we will require a copy of a photographic ID, such as passport or driving licence, and recent proof of address, such as a utility bill.
For international residents and some UK cases (for example if you have recently moved house) – we will need to ask for certified copies of identity such as a passport and utility bill, or for you to complete an identity check online yourself using a separate approved service. Again there are no charges to you as our customer.
Please note in the case of receiving funds from joint bank accounts, we will need the same information for both parties on the account. It is therefore easiest to add your partner or spouse to your account on registration with us, to avoid potential delays if you will be settling your currency transaction from a joint bank account.
What other information might you need?
We may also need to ask you about the source of your funds – for example evidence of your employment or the sale of a UK property – to satisfy anti-money laundering regulations as to how you are funding your overseas property purchase. We do not share this information with any third parties, unless we are specifically requested to do so by law enforcement agencies or other government authorities.
What other restrictions are there?
There are some “high risk” countries where we will not be able to send payments for you, and some countries of residence where we are not able to provide our services to you at all, which are available on request.
We do NOT accept cash under any circumstances, and we will NOT accept payments from your business bank account or an unrelated third party, to settle a personal transaction, unless there is a legitimate purpose (such as funds from your solicitor from the sale of a property in the UK).
We will also only process payments relating to your overseas property purchase and related services (such as topping up your own overseas bank account, or sending a payment to a supplier such as a builder or furniture company). If we pay a third party on your behalf, we may need evidence, such as an invoice, to verify what the payment is for.
Your account manager will be able to advise you of what is required before we can transmit funds on your behalf.
If you need to make payments on behalf of your business, or for a non-property related transaction, please visit our specialist in-house service, Currency Index.
For further information, please see our pages on regulatory controls, and our terms and conditions of business, or contact us to discuss your exact requirements in advance.