The Department of Internal Affairs

Te Tari Taiwhenua | Department of Internal Affairs

Building a safe, prosperous and respected nation



 

Information for the public

What is money laundering and financing of terrorism?

Money laundering is how criminals disguise the illegal origins of their money. Financers of terrorism use similar techniques to money launderers to avoid detection by authorities and to protect the identity of those providing and receiving the funds.

Who does what?

The Department of Internal Affairs supervises casinos, non-deposit taking lenders, money changers, money remitters, payroll remitters, debt collectors, factors, financial leasors, safe deposit box vaults, non-bank credit card providers, stored value card providers and cash transporters, virtual asset service providers, accountants, lawyers, conveyancers, real estate agents, high value dealers, and any other reporting entities not supervised by the Reserve Bank or the Financial Markets Authority.

How does it affect consumers?

If you are a customer of financial institutions, casinos, virtual assets service providers, accountants, lawyers, conveyancers or high value dealers you may experience more stringent identity checks than you did prior to the AML/CFT Act coming into effect. However, by verifying your identity you will be helping protect New Zealand businesses from being misused for the purposes of criminal activity.

Providing Proof of Identification

As a customer of a business that has to comply with the AML/CFT Act you may be asked to provide proof of identification.

To find out why you are being asked to provide proof of identification, see the below fact sheet.

Customer Due Diligence information sheet: proof of identification

This information sheet is available in three languages - English, Chinese and Samoan: