Tomorrow is the first deadline by which time banks and other financial institutions have to verify the identify of certain clients, or stop transactions on their accounts.
This is in terms of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) - legislation intended to prevent money laundering - and financial institutions risk fines and imprisonment if they do not comply.
Yesterday, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) put out a statement saying that banks are expected to immediately give notice to anyone who has not co-operated by providing their bank with the necessary documentation, that they will be enforcing the deadline and stopping transactions.
The FIC said clients who are unsure of their status should contact their banks immediately and take steps to meet the requests from their banks.
Tomorrow's deadline applies to all trusts and partnerships as well as certain individual and corporate clients. Your bank should have notified you if you were one of the individual or corporate clients.
By the end of this year, banks must identify all clients regarded as "high risk", half of all "medium risk" clients must be identified by May next year, and the rest by September 30 next year. All low-risk customers must be identified by September 30, 2006.
Brokers, investment managers and unit trust companies also have to have verified the identity of trusts and partnerships by tomorrow, as well as 20 percent of their individual and corporate clients. They have to identify another 30 percent of individual and corporate clients by the end of April next year and all their clients by June 30, 2005.
Central Securities Depository Participants (CSDPs) holding the electronic scrip of your shares also have to identify their clients by certain deadlines. By tomorrow they are expected to have identified all clients trading in accounts in the name of trusts, partnerships, pension funds, close corporations and companies. In addition, they are expected to verify the identity of their high-risk clients.
Tertius Vermeulen, a director of Computershare, the only CSDP that deals directly with private investors, says Computershare has decided that anyone who owns shares to the value of R15 000 or more should be identified in terms of FICA before tomorrow.
CSDPs also have to identify all their other clients by June 30 next year.