Cryptocurrency and the blockchain: What’s the AML risk?

VinciWorks has just added a new module to its course AML 360°. The module explains what is meant by cryptocurrency and blockchain and the compliance challenges they present. The module also explores the money laundering risks that come with cryptocurrency, as well as preventative measures.

Screenshot from Cryptocurrency module
The new module helps organisations understand the risks presented by cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin

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Did you know that, as an employer, you have a legal duty to give employees health and safety training that covers all the risks they face at work?

Many recent health and safety breaches (and several massive fines) suggest that employers are frequently failing to properly comply with this requirement. Time after time, investigators find that employee training is inadequate, out of date, or just never delivered. Gaps in training lead to accidents, life-changing injuries, and even death.

The ‘Health and Safety at Work Act’ defines employers’ responsibilities when it comes to training, stating that employers must provide “such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is practicable, the health and safety at work of their employees”.

As you can see, this is a potentially wide-ranging requirement, depending on the nature of your employees’ work. The onus is on employers to evaluate the risks faced by employees, and then provide suitable training.

What does good health and safety training look like? This depends on the job, but general principles of good practice include:

Informative and practical. Help employees know how to work safely. Classroom sessions may not be the most effective and efficient way to drive home important messages about safety.

Contribute to a culture of safe and healthy working. Safe working should be the default mode. It may be helpful to focus on training line managers so that health and safety is valued by everyone in your organisation from the top down.

Comprehensive. Training should cover all the key risks to health and safety that your employees face.

Bespoke. It’s no good having off-the-shelf training if it doesn’t cover all the risks in your workplace.

Monitored. Health and safety training is not a one-off project. It should be part of a wider health and safety system. Training should be topped up periodically, revised over time and reviewed to ensure any new risks are covered.

For all. Your health and safety training should cover apprentices, trainees, self-employed contractors and work experience visitors.

Reviewed. Don’t just deliver training. Make sure it has worked. Monitor employees at work and check that safety practices are being adhered to.

As you can see, health and safety training should not be a box-ticking exercise. Unless you want to take risks with your employees’ health, and possibly incur a crippling fine.

Training should never be just about avoiding accidents and preventing harm. By caring for your employees, you can reduce workplace stress while demonstrating to your teams that everyone is valued and supported.

Talk to VinciWorks about creating bespoke health and safety training for your people. Our training is online, making it easy to provide to your employees wherever they work.

What you need to know sign

The Money Laundering Regulations 2017 require relevant businesses to:

  • Make employees aware of the laws relating to money laundering and terrorist financing
  • Regularly provide training on how to recognise and deal with transactions and other activities which may be related to money laundering or terrorist financing

What is a relevant business? 

Money laundering regulations apply to various business sectors, including financial services, accountants and estate agents, and other businesses such as law firms undertaking regulated work.

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Keyboard with GDPR implementation button
The General Data Protection Regulation comes into full force on 25th May 2018

There are now less than six months to go until GDPR implementation, when it becomes law throughout the EU, including the UK. Any business operating in the EU, serving EU customers or shipping orders inside Europe will need to comply.

From training staff to rewriting privacy policies, there’s a lot that needs to be done to ensure your business is ready for GDPR. If you’re in the UK, the new Data Protection Act will form the basis of data protection law. However, ensuring your business is ready for GDPR will also ensure you are ready for the new Data Protection Act.

What is in the new UK Data Protection Bill?

Along with transposing GDPR into UK law, the Bill will replace the UK’s DPA 1998 and ensure that data protection law remains Brexit-proof. Continue reading

One of the latest features added to our LMS is the ability to access administration tools from the activity screen. Simply click on an activity from your calendar or list, then use the scroll-down on the top-right of the activity screen to carry out activities such as enrol users, invite groups or view the attendance list.

Demo showing how to manage activities

 

VinciWorks has just added a new feature to their LMS to help users manage tasks more efficiently. Users can now easily browse their calendar by clicking on “offline activities” and then “browse calendar of activities”. Users can easily view a list of the activities by clicking on “switch to list” above the calendar.

Browse calendar activity function
The new function makes it easier and faster for users to view their activities in a calendar format

Screenshot from latest data protection module to be added to the course

VinciWorks has just added a new module to the course Data Protection: Privacy at Work. The new module explores and contrasts data protection legislation in countries around the world. This new module consists of an interactive guide to global data protection, whereby users can easily lookup the answers to a range of questions they may have about the data protection laws in various countries. This allows businesses to easily familiarise themselves with the data protection laws in any country they operate in and ensure they comply.

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Young man holding up transgender symbol

With today marking Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), our recent publication in Money Laundering Bulletin examines the struggle transgender people go through when it comes to changing a name and title at establishments such as a local bank.

Changing name and title in the UK should be as easy for the transgender bank customer as for someone who marries or enters a civil partnership but too often it is not. Annoying, if not hurtful to the individual, the obstacles encountered represent reputational and possible legal risk for financial institutions.

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We have recently launched a new risk-focused course based on new EU and UK AML laws.

Anti-Money Laundering: Know Your Risk drops users into a realistic, immersive scenario-based simulation to test their knowledge, understanding and ability to uncover the risks of money laundering hidden in everyday transactions. The Fourth EU Money Laundering Directive and the UK’s Money Laundering Regulations 2017, passed this year, mandates a fully risk based approach to AML. This means the white list has gone, as have exemptions from client due diligence procedures.

As a long-standing leader in the field of e-learning, Anti-Money Laundering: Know Your Risk asks users to assess the inherent risks and red flags of over 100 available scenarios and give each situation a risk score. Uniquely in e-learning, users receive live feedback and can compare their risk tolerance against others in their firm, industry and globally.

Demo the course

Gain experience points as you take the course

Screenshot showing experience points in Anti-Money Laundering: Know Your Risk

The new course enables users to accrue experience points as they work through various AML scenarios. Veteran users will gather experience points more quickly, updating their knowledge and completing the course in as little as fifteen minutes. Whereas newer users or those that need a more in-depth refresh are encouraged to spend more time reading additional content and building up a bank of points to demonstrate their AML knowledge.

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Asbestos Awareness is a phrase we have all heard, but do we really know what it is?

Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral which has been used as a construction material for thousands of years. However, it was the Industrial Revolution that introduced asbestos into commercial use, specifically due to its wide range of properties.

The fire-resistant, flexible, and relatively durable mineral was used as an additive that was commonly processed into mechanical equipment and building materials of the 1900s. Such commercial machines and equipment includes gaskets, electrical insulators, and temperature sensitive devices like boilers or generators. The construction industry utilized asbestos in common building materials such as concrete, insulation, roofing products, floor and ceiling tiles, paints and adhesives, to name a few.

Reaching peak consumption by the 1970’s, asbestos was praised as the miracle mineral used across dozens of industries. However, as medical studies of the era started to focus on the long-term health effects of asbestos, it became clear the beloved additive could be contributing to some extremely deadly and rare lung diseases.

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So why is Asbestos so dangerous?

In the last forty years or so, asbestos has been globally acknowledged as a carcinogenic material that causes particular harm to unprotected individuals that accidentally inhale or ingest its fibres. Additionally, these microscopic particles can be carried by the wind, stick to fabrics, or contaminate open water sources resulting in secondhand exposure. After entering the body, the carcinogenic fibrils can attach to the lungs, causing damaging inflammation, scar tissue generation, and eventually mesothelioma cancer. Although it’s been known for quite some time that asbestos exposure is directly tied to mesothelioma and other asbestos-related lung diseases such as asbestosis, only 60 countries (including the EU) have entirely banned it. Therefore, EU safety standards, compliance policies, and health statistics vary greatly from those of the U.S.

Asbestos in the EU

  • In 2005, 53 countries in the EU banned asbestos. Prohibiting mining, importation, and use.
  • In 2015, HSE reported approximately 2,536 mesothelioma related deaths in Great Britain alone
  • Mesothelioma related deaths are projected to decline by the early 2020s

Asbestos in the U.S.

  • Asbestos has not been banned in the United States. However, the EPA attempted to ban it in the early 1980s. The ruling was quickly overturned
  • Some products made in the U.S. are grandfathered to contain up to 1% asbestos
  • In 2015, OSHA reported approximately 2,597 mesothelioma related deaths
  • Mesothelioma related deaths are predicted to decline by the late 2020s

Due to decades of continuous use and inconsistent global policies, asbestos remains a prevalent threat and the related diseases associated with asbestos, are rarely detected early-on. Mesothelioma, in particular, develops symptoms slowly, sometimes decades after initial exposure, and commonly mimics other illnesses like pneumonia. Unfortunately, delayed treatment due to misdiagnosis, often contributes to the less than ideal mesothelioma survival rate.

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Who should take an Asbestos Awareness Course?

According to current regulations (The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012), all employers have a legal duty to provide information, instruction and training to any employees who are likely to be exposed to Asbestos Containing Material (ACMs) as part of their work.

Taking these precautions could avoid lengthy, expensive legal compensation and save lives!

Tradespersons

According to the  Health and Safety Executive (HSE), asbestos kills 20 tradesmen every week.  It is, therefore, important that self-employed individuals, contractors and workers are appropriately trained, can protect themselves, and avoid putting others at risk of exposure. These include, demolition and construction workers, general maintenance staff, electricians, plumbers, gas fitters, roofers and plasterers.

Licensed Contractors

Where employees are undertaking higher risk work with asbestos, employers must hold a licence granted by the HSE before commencing any work with asbestos material. Licensed Contractors should have an in-depth understanding of asbestos and its dangers and know how to safely remove and dispose of asbestos material.

Building Owners

If you are a building owner, and/or are responsible for the maintenance or repair of non-domestic premises, you have a duty of care to manage any asbestos in that building.

This duty covers all non-domestic premises including industrial and commercial buildings such as factories, warehouses, offices and shops.  Public buildings such as hospitals, schools and leisure centres are also included in this duty.

Although the duty to manage asbestos does not extend to private domestic buildings, it is relevant to communal areas of multi-occupancy premises such as flats.

As a duty holder, what do you need to know?

It is your responsibility to find out if asbestos is present in your building. Once this has been established, the location, condition and type of asbestos must be recorded and risk assessed. Any identified risks should be managed and monitored by way of an action plan. These plans should be made available to any tradesperson working at your premises.

Members of the public.

If undisturbed and in good condition, asbestos is unlikely to cause harm. However, it would be wise that homeowners and tenants are aware of asbestos and where to go for advice if needed. Further information and guidance can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/

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What training do you need and where to find it?

The type of training you require will ultimately depend on your level of involvement with and potential exposure to Asbestos material.

VinciWorks offers a UKATA (Category A) Asbestos Awareness Certified eLearning Course.
This two-hour course is an essential prerequisite for any Tradesperson who is likely to come into contact with ACMs and has been certified by the United Kingdom Asbestos Training Association (UKATA). This modular course provides an in-depth range of key topics including all relevant requirements: The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, Regulation 10, and the Approved Code of Practice L143 second edition, Managing and Working with Materials Containing Asbestos.

Successful completion of the UKATA Category A Certified Online Asbestos Awareness Course, will provide users with the knowledge needed to identify the presence of asbestos, the different types of asbestos, the health risks associated with exposure to asbestos material and highlight the importance of safe working practices.

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What are the benefits of being Asbestos Aware?

Ensuring your employees have taken a course with verified content and UKATA certification will provide obvious health and safety benefits. Furthermore, it will improve your staff’s knowledge and skill set and reinforce your organisation’s reputation, credibility and business success within your industry.