On 7 April 2016, an article on reuters.com reported that the FCA has written to around 20 banks and other financial institutions, giving them a deadline of 15 April 2016 to check whether they have any links to Mossack Fonseca, the firm at the centre of the leak of the so-called “Panama Papers”.
According to the article, an FCA spokeswoman has confirmed the FCA wrote to the firms earlier this week.
An article on bbc.co.uk (also dated 7 April 2016) provides more information. It includes extracts from an FCA statement explaining that some of the firms it has written to are part of the FCA’s systematic anti-money laundering (AML) programme.
The statement goes on to say that the FCA is working closely with number of other agencies that are looking into the matter.
According to the article, the statement also highlights the FCA’s responsibility to ensure the integrity of the UK financial markets. As part of this, all authorised firms are required to have systems and controls in place to mitigate the risk that they may be used to commit financial crime.
The FCA does not appear to have published on its website either the letter it has sent to firms or the statement to which the bbc.co.uk article refers.
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