DOKS® optimises and simplifies the process of customer identification and due diligence for accounting firms and other actors in the financial sector. A key obligation of the Act on Preventing Money Laundering is to produce a customer-specific risk assessment. Accounting firms and other companies in the financial sector are well placed to recognise and prevent criminal activities.

The aim of the act is to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, promote the disclosure and investigation of such activities and to enhance the tracing and seizing of the proceeds of crime.

Accounting firms must identify and verify the identity of their customers. Beneficial owners must be identified as well as verified if they are from a high-risk country or the customer has been assessed as high-risk for other reasons. The information must be stored in a reliable way and archived for five years after the customer relationship has ended.

Compliance with the law is supervised by the Regional State Administrative Agency for Southern Finland. It is the duty of the Regional State Administrative Agency to supervise that the obliged entities, such as accounting firms, comply with the provisions of the Act on Preventing Money Laundering. The Regional State Administrative Agency also has the right to carry out inspections in the premises of obliged entities.

The service includes various useful functions which are beneficial, for example, to operators that offer financial services. The service ensures that the requirements of the Act on Preventing Money Laundering are appropriately fulfilled throughout the customer relationship. The customers of accounting firms can use simple and effortless and data secure methods to supply the required information.

DOKS also includes various other tools for setting up and maintaining a customer relationship. Electronic signatures can be used to make financial service agreements or to get a signature for, for example, a power of attorney. Secure emails allow you to deliver content that the law prevents you from sending via a normal email service to customers. That may be salary calculations or other information that includes personal identity codes. The Business Information System (YTJ) of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office automatically updates once a day the customer registry entries (e.g., information on a company’s preliminary tax register status or restructuring or bankruptcy information). Thus, DOKS can significantly accelerate the cumbersome work stages in establishing and monitoring customer relationships.