Circular No. 10/9/17369: Suspension of Third-Party Transaction Restrictions for Licensed Money Changers Dealing with the Syrian Market

[Logo of the Central Bank of Jordan]

Reference No.: 10/9/17369
Date: 17/9/1444 AH
Corresponding to: 9/4/2023 AD

Circular to Licensed Money Changers and Those with Prior Approval from the Central Bank of Jordan to Deal with the Syrian Market

Greetings,

Following the approvals granted to deal with licensed Syrian money changers in the field of incoming and outgoing remittances, which were conditional upon adhering to a set of conditions and requirements specified in the approval letters issued for this purpose, and in line with national efforts aimed at supporting victims of the earthquake in the Syrian Arab Republic, and starting from the Central Bank of Jordan's keenness on licensed money changers providing safe and sound services and avoiding international sanctions related thereto, we inform you that it has been decided to suspend the implementation of the following condition:

"The company shall not execute any transactions on behalf of customers of external money changers (third parties) within the framework of its dealings with the Syrian company, and the beneficial owner in the case of incoming remittances must be located in Jordan, and in the case of outgoing remittances, must be located in Syria."

This is effective until further notice, while the rest of the conditions and requirements governing the dealings of licensed money changers with the Syrian market remain in force, conditional upon compliance with the following:

1. Establishing internal policies, procedures, and supervisory controls and approving them formally and applying them in practice to manage the risks of this dealing, including setting specific limits for dealing (individual and aggregate limits) that take into account the degree of risk of the dealing and align with any legislation issued for this purpose, and working to provide mechanisms, procedures, and internal controls that monitor non-exceedance of these limits.

2. Enhancing supervision over these dealings and applying enhanced due diligence procedures regarding them, verifying that the parties to the transaction are clear, and closely following the pattern and nature of these dealings, and updating monitoring scenarios and detection of unusual or suspicious transactions, and working to introduce special scenarios and suspicion indicators to monitor such dealings, in alignment with the effective anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing instructions for licensed money changers.

3. The licensed money changer must have obtained approval from the Central Bank of Jordan to deal with external money changers (third parties) for whom transactions will be executed on behalf of their clients within the framework of dealing with the Syrian company.

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P.O. Box 37, Amman 11118 - Jordan Phone: +962 6 4630301 * Fax: 4638889, 4639730 Website: www.cbj.gov.jo Email: info@cbj.gov.jo

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4. Maintaining a separate file at the premises of the licensed money changer containing all supporting documents for those transactions, which indicate the external money changer (third party) for whose clients the remittance was executed, the amounts of those remittances, and the Syrian money changers receiving the remittances, and what reinforces that the value of the transferred amounts does not exceed the limits specified by the licensed money changer in particular.

Please accept our highest regards,

The Governor
Dr. Adel Al-Sharkas

[Signature]

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P.O. Box 37, Amman 11118 - Jordan Phone: +962 6 4630301 * Fax: 4638889, 4639730 Website: www.cbj.gov.jo Email: info@cbj.gov.jo

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