At AJ Bell, we’re committed to protecting our customers, our business, and the integrity of the financial system by preventing, detecting and responding to financial crime.
Financial crime poses a significant risk to individuals, firms, and society. As a regulated financial services provider, we recognise that our products and services could be targeted for misuse by criminals seeking to launder money, commit fraud or facilitate other financial crime.
We take a proactive and risk-based approach to identifying and managing these risks, ensuring that our controls are proportionate to the nature and scale of our activities.
We apply a risk-based approach to financial crime, underpinned by regular enterprise-wide and business-level risk assessments. These assessments identify and evaluate our exposure to financial crime risks, enabling us to design and maintain proportionate controls and respond to emerging threats.
We maintain a robust framework of policies and procedures to manage financial crime risk, including:
- Anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing
- Fraud prevention and investigation
- Sanctions compliance
- Anti-bribery and corruption
- Market Abuse Regulation
All employees receive mandatory financial crime training, with regular refresher programmes to ensure they understand their responsibilities and can identify and escalate potential risks.
We work with regulators, law enforcement and industry bodies, where appropriate, to support the prevention and investigation of financial crime.
We regularly review and update our framework to ensure it remains effective and aligned with legal and regulatory requirements.
Wolfsberg Group Financial Crime Questionnaire
As part of our commitment to transparency with counterparties and industry standards, we support the Wolfsberg Group framework.
The Wolfsberg Group is an industry body that develops globally recognised guidance and standards to support the effective management of financial crime risk, including in areas such as anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing and customer due diligence.
AJ Bell maintains a group-wide financial crime framework, with policies and controls that apply across all relevant legal entities. These are designed to ensure a consistent and risk-based approach to preventing, detecting, and reporting financial crime.
Our Wolfsberg Financial Crime Questionnaire provides a standardised overview of these controls, including our approach to governance, customer due diligence, monitoring, and sanctions compliance. This questionnaire is applicable for the following legal entities:
- AJ Bell PLC
- AJ Bell Securities Limited
- Lawshare Nominees Limited
- AJ Bell Management Limited
- Sippdeal Limited
- Sippdeal Trustees Limited
- AJ Bell Asset Management Limited
The Wolfsberg Group Correspondent Banking Due Diligence Questionnaire is available upon request.