Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation
OFSI is part of HM Treasury and is responsible for administering and enforcing UK financial sanctions. It maintains the UK Consolidated List of asset-freeze targets, processes licence applications to deal with sanctioned parties, and investigates breaches. Civil monetary penalties for breaches can reach £1 million or 50% of the breach value, whichever is higher — with criminal prosecution also available for serious cases.
sanctions screening against the OFSI Consolidated List is mandatory at onboarding and on an ongoing basis for every client. A confirmed match triggers an immediate freezing obligation and an OFSI report — typically within the same working day. Acting for a designated person without an OFSI licence is a criminal offence.
Other terms that go with Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation
Sanctions screening is the process of checking clients, their beneficial owners, and associated parties against official sanctions lists maintained by bodies such as the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, and the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Acting for a sanctioned individual or entity is a criminal offence.
A supervisory authority is the body responsible for overseeing AML compliance within a particular sector. For accountants not belonging to a professional body, the supervisory authority is HMRC. Members of recognised professional bodies (ICAEW, ACCA, CIMA, and others) are supervised by those bodies instead. For law firms in England and Wales, the supervisory authority is the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), with parallel regulators in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Supervisory authorities set standards, conduct reviews, and can impose sanctions.
Put Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation into practice with Certivus
Knowing the term is the first step. Certivus gives you the workflows — client intake, CDD, EDD, PEP and sanctions screening, audit-ready records — to apply it across every client.
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