QuestionsQuestions (BSP CIRCULAR LETTER)
The requirement is anchored on Section 9-c of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA), as amended, which mandates covered institutions to report covered and suspicious transactions to the AMLC within five (5) working days from occurrence, subject to specified circumstances.
They must report within five (5) working days from the occurrence of the transaction, unless the counting is affected by the exclusions or special circumstances provided in the AMLC resolution and referenced BSP circular letter.
The following are excluded: (1) weekends (Saturday and Sunday), (2) official regular national holidays, (3) officially declared national holidays (special non-working days nationwide), (4) officially declared holidays in the locality where the AMLC Secretariat Office is located.
A non-reporting day may be declared when the File Transfer and Reporting Facility (FTRF) used for transmitting electronic reports to the AMLC is unavailable to all covered institutions for at least five (5) consecutive hours during the day.
The Executive Director of the AMLC Secretariat (or the Officer-in-Charge) is authorized to declare such days as a non-reporting day upon notification and justification by the Deputy Director of IMAS AMLC Secretariat.
It is excluded from the counting of the prescribed reporting period.
No. Local holidays are treated as working days, except for officially declared local holidays in the locality where the AMLC Secretariat Office is located; hence, they are included in the reporting-period counting for most CIs.
The covered institution may file a deviation request with the AMLC Secretariat.
Deviation requests are subject to approval of the Executive Director of the AMLC Secretariat (or the Officer-in-Charge) upon recommendation of the Deputy Director of IMAS AMLC Secretariat.
It serves as the basis for manually recomputing whatever penalties that would otherwise be automatically computed by TMAS (the Transaction Monitoring and Analysis System).
Officially-declared non-working days in localities/regions affected by natural calamities (e.g., flood, typhoon, earthquake) may be excluded from counting for CIs located in the affected areas, but subject to submission of a deviation request.
The guidelines require submission of a deviation request by the CI; approval depends on the Executive Director (or OIC) based on recommendation of the Deputy Director of IMAS AMLC Secretariat. The resolution does not enumerate specific documents, but the request must be justified to permit approval and recomputation.
Generally, no. Local holidays (except those in the locality where the AMLC Secretariat Office is located) are treated as working days, meaning they are included in counting unless a deviation request is approved.
The TMAS (Transaction Monitoring and Analysis System) is referenced. When a deviation request is approved, penalties are manually recomputed despite being automatically computed by TMAS.
The BSP Circular Letter informs and provides guidance that AMLC Resolution No. 2, s. 2005 dated 12 January 2005 approved the policies and guidelines on reckoning the compliance with the prescribed reporting period under AMLA.
The circular and attachment state that the five (5)-working-day reporting requirement is subject to the circumstances described in Resolution No. 292, dated October 24, 2003, which remains in full force and effect.
They should be excluded from counting, as the guidelines expressly list weekends and official regular national holidays as non-working days excluded from the reporting-period computation.
The delay might be explained by excluded days such as AMLC-declared non-reporting days due to FTRF unavailability (at least five consecutive hours) or approved deviations for local holidays or natural-calamity area non-working days.