On 3 and 4 August 2021, Boyko Atanasov, Chairman of the Financial Supervision Commission, launched a series of training seminars for supervised entities on topics related to the implementation of measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing provided for in the Law on Measures against Money Laundering, the Law on Measures against Financing of Terrorism and the acts on their implementation.

The main topics of the online training seminars were:

– Evaluation of the Republic of Bulgaria within the Fifth Evaluation Round of the MONEYVAL Committee of the Council of Europe;

– National risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing in the Republic of Bulgaria;

– Preparation of own risk assessment by the obligated persons and determination of the risk profile of their clients;

– Requirements for remote identification of customers;

– Requirements of the Law on Measures against Financing of Terrorism;

– Established trends and typologies for money laundering and terrorist financing and predicate offenses at the national and international level;

– Practices and trends identified among obligated parties in the Commission’s oversight of the implementation of the Law on Measures against Money Laundering, the Regulations for the Implementation of the Law on Measures against Money Laundering, and the Law on Measures against Financing of Terrorism.

During the trainings the experts of the Financial Supervision Commission provided an opportunity to discuss certain issues related to the application of the considered regulatory acts, set by the participants.

The topics of the training seminars were the subject of increased interest among business representatives.

The training held on 3 August 2021 was attended by 190 representatives and employees of a total of 62 companies – investment firms, collective investment schemes and other collective investment undertakings, management companies and managers of alternative investment funds.

The training held on 4 August 2021 was attended by 138 representatives and employees of a total of 75 pension insurance companies, insurers and insurance intermediaries.

The purpose of the seminars is to further the understanding of the representatives of the non-banking financial sector of the importance of compliance with the requirements of preventive legislation and their key role in maintaining the stability of the financial sector and assisting the competent authorities in preventing and detecting money laundering and terrorist financing activities.