FIAU Annual Report for 2019 – Who is filing reports?
The FIAU has just published its annual report for 2019. As usual the report includes details of suspicious transactions filed with the regulator.
The initial glance show that compared to the previous year, the number of reports shot up by over 65%. A closer analysis will however throw more light.
For the first time, the leader in reporting is the Remote Gaming sector. Normally Credit Institutions dominate the table, but despite registering a substantial increase in reports filed, Credit Institutions only managed to secure a second place. The table below gives a n analysis of the reports filed by Credit Institutions.
| Sector | Number of institutions in sector | Number of STRs filed | Comments |
| Core domestic banks | 6 | 335 | One core domestic bank filed most of the STRs |
| Non Core domestic banks | 5 | 39 | Most of the STRs were filed by one institution |
| International Banks | 13 | 588 | One bank submitted 80% of this number |
What is also significant is that there was a huge increase in reports filed by Supervisory Authorities. In fact, reports from this sector numbered 83, compared to 11 for the year before making the contribution by these authorities to 3% of the total reports filed. This means that three particular sectors namely:
- Remote Gaming Companies – 1445
- Credit Institutions -962
- Supervisory Authorities -83
Totalling to 2490, contributed to just below 90% of all reports filed with the FIAU.
The Corporate Services sector came in fourth place with less than 2% of the total, followed by Financial Institutions (Payment Service Providers) and Casino Licences at 1.2% each.
The other reports making a total of 170 are spread between eighteen different sectors.
Our prediction for the current year is that the trend whereas the Remote Gaming sector will continue to be the leader in reports filed, will be maintained. This is a vast sector and the COVID situation may have added more opportunities for higher activity.
The likelihood is that the Credit Institutions sector will not experience the same numbers as the 2019 performance was probably a one off surge.
