The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) updated its guidance on anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing requirements for money services businesses (MSBs) and foreign MSBs, including new due diligence obligations when MSBs deliver services through agents or mandataries. From October 1, 2025, MSBs must verify an agent or mandatary’s eligibility and obtain and review criminal record checks, and must not engage, or must stop engaging, a person or entity that is not eligible. The guidance sets out that eligibility verification and criminal record checks are required before engaging an agent or mandatary and again within 30 days after the second anniversary of the most recent verification if the agent is still acting on the MSB’s behalf. For entity agents, criminal record checks must be obtained for the chief executive officer, president, directors, and each person who owns or controls, directly or indirectly, 20% or more of the entity or its shares; for individual agents, the check must cover that person. Checks must be issued by a competent authority in the country of residence (or an authorized issuer) and be no more than 6 months old at the time of review; non-English/French documents must be translated into English or French and attested by a certified translator, with related documents retained for at least 5 years. Non-compliance with these measures is an offence, with potential penalties of up to CAD 250,000 and/or up to 2 years less a day imprisonment on summary conviction, or up to CAD 500,000 and/or up to 5 years imprisonment on indictment. MSBs that had already engaged an agent before October 1, 2025 must comply with the new eligibility verification and criminal record check requirements by October 1, 2027, after which the two-year re-verification cycle applies.

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