Money Laundering Report
Mercia Group survey confirms the number of Money Laundering Reports issued to NCIS by accountants is below expectation.
Mercia Group, who are the UK’s leading provider of support services to accountancy firms has conducted their own survey into the number of reports MLNO’s within their membership base have been submitting to NCIS.
Ever since the money laundering rules came into force on 1 March 2004, firms have been seeking reassurance that the number of reports they are making is in line with similar sized practices. With this in mind, Mercia Group requested details from MLNO’s within their client base in order to share some anonymous statistics.
Almost 100 firms responded to their plea, with some interesting results. Over the first three months of regulation (March - May) the MLNOs who participated in the survey received 302 reports from their teams of which 195 were forwarded to NCIS.
The results, categorised by size of firm, can be viewed at http://www.mercia-group.co.uk/technical/Money%20Landering%20Reports%20Data.xls.
Results over the three months are fairly consistent. Sole practitioners and larger firms forward 50% of reports to NCIS whereas the 2 - 4 partner firms seem to be more cautious, forwarding over 80% of those they received. There were certainly a higher number of nil returns than Mercia Group had expected to see.
Accountancy Age recently reported that NCIS themselves are saying they are surprised at the low level of reports being received from our profession - quoting that only 100 reports per month are currently being received from accountants. (Although this does seem to conflict with early enquiries from the ICAEW's Audit and Assurance Faculty (April - true & fair) which suggested reports were being submitted at the rate of 100 per day!)
Given that those who responded to this survey confessed to submitting 195 in 3 months, those who didn’t respond can’t have submitted very many if the NCIS statistics are to be believed.
Mercia Group anticipates repeating the survey exercise later in the year to see if there are any substantial changes to the current pattern.