Rule
Standard customer due diligence applies when a bank establishes a business relationship, or when a single or linked transaction reaches EUR 10,000 or its equivalent (EUR 2,000 for gambling/betting providers, EUR 1,000 for electronic fund-transfer services), or whenever a transaction is suspected of money laundering or terrorist financing regardless of amount. Banks must specifically check whether a customer living abroad is a Politically Exposed Person. A non-face-to-face relationship, opened by correspondence, phone, email, internet or other remote means, is explicitly permitted and regulated, not prohibited — it triggers enhanced due diligence, satisfied by confirming the first transaction originates from an account the customer already holds at a bank in an 'equivalent country' (an EU/EEA state or one with similar anti-money-laundering obligations), by additional-document identification, or by third-party verification through a bank in that equivalent country.[1]
Exceptions
- Confirms the legal permission and conditions for a non-face-to-face account relationship; does not establish that any specific TRNC bank actually offers this in practice.
- The beneficial-owner definition referenced by the wider AML disclosure obligation (Article 8) was not independently retrieved for this Rule.
Practical implication
A foreigner opening or maintaining a TRNC bank account by post, phone or online should expect a bank to ask for extra verification steps because non-face-to-face relationships are treated as higher-risk, not because anything is legally wrong with opening an account this way.