UIAF reporting obligation for companies and individuals

The Financial Information and Analysis Unit (UIAF), as the entity in charge in Colombia of detecting practices associated with money laundering and financing of terrorism, issued Resolution No. 314 of December 15, 2021, in which it established more effective controls on the origin and destination of the resources involved in the operations carried out by virtual asset service providers, to mitigate the ML/FT risks present in such activity.

For the purposes of the resolution, natural or legal persons that carry out for or on behalf of another person, any of the following activities regardless of the amount, are considered as obliged subjects:

1. exchange between Virtual Assets and fiat currencies and exchange of fiat currencies to virtual assets.

2. Exchange between one or more forms of Virtual Assets.

3. Transfer of Virtual Assets.

4. Custody or administration of Virtual Assets or instruments that allow control over Virtual Assets.

5.Participation in and provision of financial services related to an issuer's offering or sale of a Virtual Asset.

6. In general, services related to Virtual Assets.

All regulated entities must report to the UIAF the Suspicious Transactions they detect, immediately and directly, through SIREL. In case of not detecting the existence of suspicious transactions, they shall report to the UIAF the absence of suspicious transactions monthly, within the first twenty (20) calendar days of the following month.

Additionally, they must report monthly to the UIAF within the first twenty (20) calendar days of the following month, the individual and multiple transactions carried out on virtual assets, or the absence of these transactions.

Finally, they must report in the same period previously indicated, all active, inactive, and unlinked clients that are registered within the exchange platform with the product(s) associated to it.

For this purpose, the new regulated entities must register in SIREL through the UIAF web page (www.uiaf.gov.co) SIREL section, requesting code and user. This registration can be done as of December 2021. Likewise, both the resolution and the technical annexes can be consulted in the UIAF web page, in the section Reporters, Virtual Assets, PSAV Resolution UIAF.

The reports referred to in this Resolution will begin to be sent as of April 1, 2022, and non-compliance will give rise to the imposition of the respective fines and other administrative sanctions by the Superintendence of Companies or the respective supervisory body, without prejudice to any administrative or criminal actions that may be applicable.