Contact our dedicated whistleblowing hotline and email address in confidence if you know or suspect a breach of the Money Laundering Regulations by a professional in the regulated sector.
The Money Laundering Regulations (MLR) 2017 require ICB to have measures in place to encourage our members and others to report breaches of the regulations to us. This is further reinforced in the OPBAS sourcebook which requires us to have whistleblowing arrangements in place to allow concerns to be raised through an independent channel able to protect the whistleblower's confidentiality.
You may be a student working with an ICB Bookkeeper, or you may be employed in an ICB bookkeeping practice where you suspect a colleague, your manager, or the practice owner isn’t complying with the requirements of the MLR. You may be a client of an ICB Bookkeeper, or just a concerned member of the public, you may not have any concrete evidence of any wrongdoing but there’s something you are uneasy about.
The ICB dedicated ‘whistleblower telephone line’ provides a mechanism that allows your voice to be heard. All calls will be directed to appropriate ICB staff who are trained in handling confidential information. ICB has specific procedures and policies to ensure that the information received is properly recorded, addressed and evaluated and, where the information is found to have substance, escalated. All information provided will be dealt with in the strictest confidence and support and guidance will be available to anyone who “blows the whistle”.
You can be confident that any calls will be handled sensitively and confidentially. You can remain anonymous should you wish, ICB will respect anonymity and will not try to identify you. All calls will be thoroughly and objectively investigated, and action will be taken when appropriate.
If you are part of the “Regulated Sector” please do not confuse the ICB whistleblowing line with your legal responsibility to submit a SAR to the National Crime Agency if you know or suspect money laundering. A SAR must still be submitted where you have the requisite knowledge or suspicion of money laundering even though you have made a disclosure using the whistleblowing line. Similarly, if you have a complaint about the professional competence of, or your treatment by, an ICB Bookkeeper that isn’t related to money laundering, you should report this through the usual ICB Professional Conduct channels.
