monetary Fine was imposed on CURRENCY eXCHANGE OPERATOR- LTD „MAHDIS” (I.N. 405347940)

According to Article 7, Paragraph 13 of the "Rules for Registration and Regulation of Currency Exchange Offices" approved by Order No. 37/04 of the President of the National Bank of Georgia dated February 28, 2018 and Also, according to Article 4 of Order No. 1 of the Head of the Financial Monitoring Service of Georgia dated January 18, 2012, “On Approval of the Regulation on the Procedure for Receiving, Systematizing, Processing and Transmitting Information by Currency Exchange Offices to the Financial Monitoring Service of Georgia”, entities who begin activities after the entry into force of this Order must submit a completed registration form to the Financial Monitoring Service of Georgia no later than 10 days after registration with the National Bank of Georgia. The currency exchange office was registered with the National Bank of Georgia on January 15, 2020. Despite the aforementioned obligation, the currency exchange office submitted the initial registration form to the Financial Monitoring Service of Georgia late, on February 3, 2020. Which, in accordance with Article 5, Subparagraph “g” of the “Rules for Determining, Imposing and Enforcing the Amount of Monetary Fines for Microfinance Organizations and Currency Exchange operators”, approved by Order No. 25/04 of the President of the National Bank of Georgia dated February 7, 2012, provides for a fine of 2,000 (two thousand) GEL;

127 (one hundred and twenty-seven) cases of providing services to a person without identification/verification, which, in accordance with Article 3, paragraph 3, subparagraph “b” of the “Rules for Determining, Imposing and Enforcing the Amount of Monetary Fines for Currency Exchange operators” approved by Order No. 17/04 of the President of the National Bank of Georgia dated February 5, 2020, provides for a fine of 1,000 (one thousand) GEL for each case. Total 127,000 (one hundred and twenty-seven thousand) GEL;

With to 2 (two) clients, the currency exchange office did not conduct a study of the origin of the property (cash) in accordance with the legislation, Which, in accordance with Article 3, Paragraph 3, Subparagraph “z” of the “Rules for Determining, Imposing and Enforcing the Amount of Monetary Fines for Currency Exchange operators” approved by Order No. 17/04 of the President of the National Bank of Georgia dated February 5, 2020, envisages a fine in the amount of 3,000 (three thousand) GEL in relation to each client. Total 6,000 (six thousand) GEL;

Failure to comply with the requirements of the Article 27 paragraph 6 of the Law of Georgia “on Facilitating the Suppression of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing”. The software system implemented in the currency exchange office for the purpose of promoting prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism is operating with significant faults. In particular, it fails to detect suspicious/unusual transactions which according to the Article 3, paragraph 2, point “e” of the Rule Approved by the Decree N17/04 of the President of the National Bank of Georgia on February 5, 2020 “On Determining, imposing and enforcing of the fines to the Currency Exchange bureau and its administrators” envisages a Fine of 10 000 (Ten thousand) Lari.

In Total Currency Exchange Operator - LTD „MAHDIS” (I.N. 405347940) was fined with 145,000 (one hundred forty five thousand) GEL.