AML & KYC Policy

Yal Group Inc. is committed to preventing its services being used for money laundering, terrorist financing, proliferation financing, sanctions evasion, fraud or tax evasion. This policy applies to every client, every prospective client, and every transaction we process.

We operate under the anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing requirements applicable to us in Saint Lucia, principally the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Counter-Terrorism Act, together with the guidance and notices on AML and CFT issued by the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) of Saint Lucia. We also have regard to the resolutions and sanctions issued by the United Nations Security Council and to the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force.

Saint Lucia treats money laundering as an all-crimes offence. It covers the transfer, conversion, deposit, saving, investing, exchanging or managing of any proceeds with intent to conceal or disguise their illicit origin, and the acquisition, possession or use of proceeds derived from any offence. Assisting in money laundering, failing to report a suspicion, and tipping a person off that they are being investigated are each criminal offences.

This document is a summary written for clients. It is drawn from our internal AML procedures manual, which is reviewed at least annually and approved by our board, but it does not publish the internal thresholds, monitoring scenarios or escalation triggers that form part of our programme, because doing so would help the people the programme exists to stop.

We apply a risk-based approach. Every client is assessed before onboarding and assigned a risk rating of high, medium or low, and that rating determines how much we ask for, how closely activity is reviewed, and how often the relationship is re-examined. Factors include:

• your country of residence, nationality, place of business and tax residence;
• your occupation, your source of wealth and the source of the funds you deposit;
• whether you are, or are connected to, a politically exposed person;
• the payment methods and payment routes you use;
• the size, frequency and pattern of your deposits, trading and withdrawals;
• for an entity, its ownership and control structure and the commercial rationale for it;
• any adverse media or law enforcement information relating to you;
• whether the relationship is conducted entirely remotely, as most are.

A higher rating does not mean we suspect you of anything. It means we will ask for more, and check more often. Your rating is documented, approved internally, and reviewed periodically, so it can move in either direction over the life of the relationship.

Where the assessed risk is genuinely low, some measures may be applied proportionately rather than in full. Simplified treatment is a calibration of a documented assessment, not a shortcut, and it is never applied as a blanket rule to a category of client. We always identify beneficial owners, whatever the rating.

Responsibility for this programme rests with our board of directors. The board is responsible for maintaining the policies, procedures, systems and controls that prevent money laundering, for receiving regular management information on how well they work, and for commissioning regular assessments of whether they remain adequate for the nature and scale of our business.

We appoint a Money Laundering Reporting Officer and a Deputy MLRO with responsibility for the programme, for receiving internal reports of suspicion, and for deciding whether a report is made to the authorities. The MLRO has direct access to the board, unrestricted access to the information needed to do the job, and the authority to freeze an account, refuse a transaction or terminate a relationship. The decision whether to report externally is the MLRO's alone and is not subject to anyone else's approval.

The MLRO can be reached through info@yal.com, marking your message for the attention of the Money Laundering Reporting Officer.

Our compliance function reviews the programme at least annually, including sample testing of due diligence files and an analysis of the internal reports made to the MLRO. We complete and submit the AML and CFT compliance returns required of us by the Financial Intelligence Authority, and the programme is reviewed after any material change to our business or to the law.

We verify your identity before your account is activated for trading. Our policy is not to establish a business relationship until due diligence is complete. We do not operate anonymous, numbered or fictitious-name accounts, we do not accept an account opened under a name that is not yours, and we do not accept a nominee account held for someone whose identity has not been disclosed to us.

Individual clients.

Verification is carried out against original documents, certified copies, or data obtained from a reliable and independent source. Where we cannot see an original, we require a first-generation copy certified as a true copy of the original by a person of standing such as a lawyer, notary, chartered accountant, police officer or consular official, showing the date of certification and the certifier's name, occupation and business address. A copy of a copy is not acceptable.

Corporate and other entity clients. In addition to the above for each individual involved, we require:

• certificate of incorporation, and any certificate of change of name;
• memorandum and articles of association or equivalent constitutional documents;
• a current register of directors and of shareholders or members;
• identification of every partner or shareholder holding, directly or indirectly, more than 5% of the capital or voting rights, which is the threshold that applies to us in Saint Lucia, together with any other person who exercises control over the entity;
• a board resolution authorising the account and naming the persons authorised to operate it;
• proof of the entity's registered and trading address;
• the entity's most recent financial statements, where available.

Where an entity's ownership is structured through further entities, trusts or nominees, we will follow the chain until we identify the natural persons who ultimately own or control it. For a trust, that includes the trustee, the settlor, the protector, the enforcer, the beneficiaries and anyone with power to appoint or remove a trustee. An ownership structure we cannot see through is a reason to decline.

Timing. Due diligence is completed before the relationship is formalised. In the rare case where verification is deferred so as not to interrupt a time-critical transaction, it requires senior approval, it is only available where the money laundering risk is low and manageable, and verification must be completed as soon as practicable and in any event within 30 days. We also repeat due diligence where we doubt the documents we hold, where your risk rating or circumstances change, where the account has been dormant for more than twelve months, or where we suspect money laundering.

Reliance on others. We may rely on due diligence carried out by a regulated third party such as a financial institution, law firm or accountancy firm, but only where that party is properly supervised in a jurisdiction with standards equivalent to the FATF recommendations, provides us with the underlying information immediately, and undertakes to provide certified copies on request without delay. Reliance does not transfer responsibility. We remain accountable for the due diligence, and where we are not satisfied with what we receive we carry it out ourselves.

We apply enhanced due diligence where a relationship presents a higher risk, including where:

• you are a politically exposed person, a family member of one, or a person known to be a close associate of one;
• you are resident in, or your funds originate from, a jurisdiction identified as high risk;
• the source of your funds or wealth is unclear, or the evidence provided does not support the amounts involved;
• your activity is materially inconsistent with what you told us at onboarding;
• your structure involves complex legal arrangements, trusts or private investment vehicles;
• adverse media, a sanctions near-match or a law enforcement enquiry concerns you.

Enhanced due diligence means additional identification evidence, senior management approval to open or continue the relationship, independent corroboration of source of funds and source of wealth, a fuller understanding of the business rationale behind the relationship, more intensive monitoring and more frequent review. In very high-risk cases we may commission a third-party intelligence report. Where we are not satisfied by the due diligence overall, we may require that your first payment reaches us from an account in your own name at a regulated bank.

Politically exposed persons are identified through our screening provider at onboarding and monitored thereafter, including at least an annual review for adverse media. The MLRO maintains a register of politically exposed persons identified within our client base, advises on how each relationship proceeds, and any such relationship requires senior approval. Being a politically exposed person is not a disqualification and is not an accusation; it is a status that requires closer handling, and it can persist after a person leaves office.

We screen every applicant, every beneficial owner and every authorised person against sanctions and watch lists at onboarding and on an ongoing basis thereafter, including the consolidated lists of the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, and any list or finding issued by the Financial Intelligence Authority or the government of Saint Lucia. Screening is performed using GB Group, through its ID3 identity verification and C6 ongoing screening tools, supported by open-source adverse media searches. The names checked and the results obtained are recorded on the client's file.

YAL does not accept clients resident or located in Iran, North Korea (DPRK), Myanmar, Syria, Russia, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk and other occupied or restricted regions. YAL also does not accept clients resident or located in the United Arab Emirates.

We also restrict access to our website from those jurisdictions on the basis of the apparent location of the connection.

Where a client, a payment or a counterparty matches a sanctions listing, we will freeze the relevant funds, refuse the transaction, and notify the Financial Intelligence Authority immediately, giving details of the activity and the action we have taken or propose to take. We will not tell you the details of a report where the law prevents us from doing so.

Payment controls are where most laundering attempts against a broker are actually caught, and ours are strict:

• Own name only. We accept funds only from an account, card or wallet held in the name of the account holder. Third-party payments are refused and returned to source.
• Return to source. Withdrawals are returned to the origin of the deposit, in the same currency and by the same method, up to the amount deposited, before any balance can be sent elsewhere.
• No pass-through. Our services are for trading. An account that is funded and then withdrawn with little or no trading activity is treated as an attempted use of a broker as a payment or currency conversion facility, and it will be investigated and may be closed.
• No cash. We do not accept cash, and we do not accept payment instruments we cannot trace to a verified account in your name.
• Route consistency. A material change in your payment routes, currencies or counterparties will be reviewed before it is processed.
• Unnecessary routing. Funds routed through third-party accounts or through structures your circumstances do not explain will be questioned, and may be refused.

Due diligence does not end at onboarding. We monitor account activity for the life of the relationship, using manual and automated systems, and compare what you do with what we understood about you when we opened the account. Where the two diverge, we ask.

We pay particular attention to transactions that are complex or unusually large, to patterns that have no apparent economic or lawful purpose, and to activity that is out of line with your stated profile. An unusual transaction is not automatically a suspicious one. It is a reason to make further enquiries, and we make them rather than assume an explanation.

We periodically refresh the information and documents we hold, more frequently for higher-risk relationships, and we re-run sanctions and watch-list screening on an ongoing basis. If your identification expires, or your circumstances change, we will ask you to update your file. We may restrict trading or withdrawals on an account whose documentation has lapsed until it is brought up to date.

You must tell us promptly if your name, address, country of residence, tax residence, employment, or beneficial ownership changes.

Our staff are required to report internally, to the MLRO, any activity that gives rise to knowledge or suspicion, or reasonable grounds for suspicion, of money laundering or terrorist financing. That obligation is personal to each employee, it applies whether or not a business relationship was ever opened, and no one may dissuade an employee from making a report.

The MLRO investigates and documents each internal report, decides whether the threshold for external reporting is met, and, where it is, files a Suspicious Transaction Report with the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) of Saint Lucia as soon as practicable, obtaining and retaining confirmation of receipt. Where no external report is made, the MLRO records the reasons.

Where we know or suspect that a transaction is related to money laundering, we will not carry it out until we have reported it and received instructions from the Financial Intelligence Authority on how to proceed.

We will refuse to open an account, or will suspend or close an existing one, where:

• we cannot verify your identity or that of a beneficial owner to our satisfaction;
• you do not provide the evidence we ask for, or provide evidence we cannot rely on;
• the information you gave us is false, incomplete or inconsistent;
• your ownership or control structure prevents us from identifying a significant beneficial owner;
• you or a connected party appear on a sanctions or watch list;
• you are resident or located in a jurisdiction from which we do not accept clients;
• we form a suspicion we are required to act on, or the law or a competent authority requires it.

Where due diligence cannot be completed, or a material part of it such as identifying and verifying a beneficial owner cannot be conducted, the relationship will not be established. For an existing client we may suspend rather than terminate, depending on the circumstances.

Where funds are held on an account we close, we will return them to the verified source of the original deposit once we are lawfully able to do so. We are not obliged to release funds, terminate a relationship or explain ourselves where doing so would tip you off, would breach the law, or would conflict with an instruction from the Financial Intelligence Authority.

We retain identification and due diligence records, transaction records, risk assessments, internal and external reports and the supporting evidence for at least six years from the date the report was made, the relationship ended, or the transaction was completed, whichever is latest. Where the end of a relationship is unclear, we treat it as ending on the date of the last transaction. Records are kept so that any transaction can be reconstructed and any client identified, are held in English or with a translation, and are available promptly to the Financial Intelligence Authority on request. Retention is dealt with further in our Privacy Policy.

All relevant staff, including our directors, receive anti-money-laundering training on joining and at least annually thereafter, covering their obligations, how to recognise suspicious activity, and how to report it. Employees sign an undertaking to comply with our procedures, and failure to report a suspicion is a disciplinary matter as well as a criminal one.

We cooperate fully and openly with law enforcement, regulators and the Financial Intelligence Authority, and we respond promptly to lawful requests for information about clients and transactions.

Questions about this policy, or about a request we have made of you, can be sent to info@yal.com.