Risk factors that may be relevant when identifying the risk associated with a customer’s or a customer’s beneficial owner’s business or professional activity include:

a) Does the customer or beneficial owner have links to sectors that are commonly associated with higher corruption risk, such as construction, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, the arms trade and defence, the extractive industries or public procurement?

b) Does the customer or beneficial owner have links to sectors that are associated with higher ML/TF risk, for example certain money service businesses, providers of crypto-assets services as described in Guidelines 9.20 and 9.21, casinos or dealers in precious metals?

c) Does the customer or beneficial owner have links to sectors that involve significant amounts of cash?

d) Where the customer is a legal person, trust, or other type of legal arrangement, what is the purpose of their establishment? For example, what is the nature of their business?

e) Does the customer have political connections, for example, are they a Politically Exposed Person (PEP), or is their beneficial owner a PEP? Does the customer or beneficial owner have any other relevant links to a PEP, for example are any of the customer’s directors PEPs and, if so, do these PEPs exercise significant control over the customer or beneficial owner? Where a customer or their beneficial owner is a PEP, firms must always apply EDD measures in line with Article 20 of Directive (EU) 2015/849.