Trust or Company Service Provider
A Trust or Company Service Provider is a business that — by way of a business — forms companies, provides registered-office or business-address services, acts as or arranges for nominee shareholders or directors, or acts as or arranges for trustees of express trusts. TCSPs are within scope of MLR 2017 (Regulation 12) and must be either supervised by HMRC or a relevant professional body.
many small accountancy practices fall within the TCSP definition simply by offering registered-office services to clients. That triggers TCSP-specific supervisory registration obligations and means the firm-wide risk assessment must explicitly cover the TCSP activity.
Other terms that go with Trust or Company Service Provider
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.
In AML, risk assessment operates at two levels. A firm-wide risk assessment identifies the overall money laundering risks facing a practice — covering client types, services offered, geographies, delivery channels, and funding sources. A client risk assessment scores an individual client as low, medium, or high risk and determines what level of due diligence to apply.
Anti-Money Laundering refers to the laws, regulations, and procedures designed to prevent criminals from disguising illegally obtained funds as legitimate income. In the UK, the primary framework is the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017), which applies to accountants, lawyers, estate agents, and certain financial businesses.
Put Trust or Company Service Provider 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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