In our submission to the draft Outsourcing Guidance (the draft Guidance) we raised concerns that the draft Guidance did not appear to consider the resources of sole practitioners, micro or small businesses.

The basis of our concern being that, on the enactment of tranche II of Australia's AML/CTF regime, many of our members will become reporting entities. Those members will operate across the breadth of business structures from a sole trader and a one or two partner practice through to a large practice with many partners.

While generally supportive of the intent of the draft Guidance, we referred ASUTRAC to the Department of Finance guide Reducing red tape by improving clarity and usefulness of regulation and guidance materials, 2015. We noted that ‘The word ‘should’ is best to be avoided, …it has been interpreted to imply mandatory requirements, particularly by smaller entities with limited capacity to devote resources to compliance activities. Importantly, ‘Guidance material supports differing approaches depending on the size and complexity of the entity…‘.

Accordingly, we sought for the draft Guidance to provide clarity on what is mandatory and what is good practice.

Our submission then highlighted several areas in the Outsourcing Guidance that may not be achievable. For example, considering, and verifying, ‘a providers qualifications in Australia’s AML/CTF regime and your industry’. Yet, as far as we are aware, it is not possible to obtain AML/CTF qualifications or that a provider can obtain some form of accreditation.

We sought for the draft Guidance to identify the specific qualifications AUSTRAC considers providers should hold.

Our submission referred back to our joint submission to the Modernisation of the AML/CTF regime, submitted to the Attorney General’s Department in June 2023. In this submission, we sought for AUSTRAC to host a list of software suppliers that meet some simple criteria. In this submission, we referred AUSTRAC to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and its list of Software for Single Touch Payroll. This list was of software solutions to meet single touch payroll that met basic criteria. For example, the monthly cost to the business could not be more than $10.

We sought for the draft Guidelines to include a link to a comparison table of providers that, at a minimum, meet Australia's AML/CTF obligations.

In conclusion, we sought Outsourcing Guidance that clarified actions that are mandatory, used plain language, provided a link to a table that compares product offerings that comply with the Australian regime, and outlines best practice that is scalable and can be reasonably undertaken by reporting entities of different sizes and complexity.