The Wolfsberg Group is pleased to publish a series of materials supporting the implementation of the Correspondent Banking Due Diligence Questionnaire (CBDDQ).The CBDDQ was launched in 2018 as a significant update to the original Wolfsberg AML Questionnaire covering the major aspects of banks’ financial crime programmes (AML, ABC and Sanctions) and is designed to be an enhanced and reasonable standard for cross-border and/or other higher risk Correspondent Banking Due Diligence, reducing to a minimum any additional data requirements, as per the Wolfsberg definition and current FATF Guidance.

These materials have been designed to aid ‘capacity building’ in the industry and support the objectives of the G20 and other supranational organisations towards a well supervised and more harmonised regulatory standard in the correspondent banking space. Wolfsberg expects that these materials will be very useful to public sector entities as they work with banks and countries looking to enhance their own financial crime compliance programs as well as to banks and other financial institutions for their own training needs.

The new Wolfsberg capacity building materials include:

·         A short video giving an overview of the CBDDQ and its development and purpose

·         A series of 12 videos covering each section of the CBDDQ individually and which are intended for high level training and awareness for banks, supervisors and other public sector bodies

·         A detailed review of the majority of the questions in the CBDDQ highlighting the risks and considerations that the questions are designed to identify as well as setting out clear expectations for the communication between Correspondent and Respondent.

The new tools should be used in combination with the CBDDQ itself as well as previously published Completion Guidance and FAQs document and can be found here - https://wolfsberg-principles.com/cbddq-capacity-building-materials 

“This is another important set of tools offered by The Wolfsberg Group to help the correspondent banking community. The CBDDQ is a valuable standard in facilitating due diligence and is a core component of other capacity building tools for correspondent banking such as the BAFT Respondent’s Playbook.  We hope these additional aids will improve consistency and help banks better manage the flow of information necessary for building and maintaining correspondent relationships.” Tod Burwell, President & CEO, BAFT