Chile’s Ministry of Finance reported that the Chamber of Deputies’ Citizen Security Commission has largely completed the detailed vote on the bill to create an Economic Intelligence System, with only amendments still pending on allowing the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) to lift bank secrecy in administrative proceedings in three circumstances. The approved package strengthens the UAF’s sanctioning framework for obliged entities and clears an initial transitional provision to expand staffing across key agencies. Under the agreed amendments, fines applied by the UAF to natural and legal persons that breach duties under the law would be set and graduated by the UAF director based on proportionality, the offender’s economic capacity, the seriousness and consequences of the act or omission, and prior conduct. Sanctions for minor infringements include a warning and a fine up to 3,000 UF, with the UAF required to evidence that the offender knew of the breached instruction; less serious infringements carry a warning and a fine up to 10,000 UF; and serious infringements a warning and a fine up to 45,000 UF. Repeated infringements can be fined up to three times the relevant cap, with repetition defined as two or more infringements of the same nature within a 12-month period. The commission also approved a first transitional article increasing headcount by five in the UAF, Customs and the Internal Revenue Service, with the latter two additions limited to Economic Intelligence Units focused on tracing money flows, and adopted related provisions on UAF staff drug-use prohibitions and mandatory controls as well as administrative procedures including email notifications to reporting entities. The committee still needs to vote on the remaining amendments concerning administrative lifting of bank secrecy for the UAF in three grounds.

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