Our compliance policy

Indosuez has internal rules that follow the legal and regulatory requirements applicable to banking and financial activities.

This ensures we retain our stakeholders’ trust (clients, employees, investors, supervisory authorities, suppliers, etc.).

In an increasingly complex environment with ever tougher regulatory standards, banks have been obliged to raise their KYC (know your customer) standards in recent years. The obligation to ensure that client information is accurate means banks know their clients better, enabling them to serve and protect them better.

To make our compliance approach easier to understand, we have broken it down into four parts:

• Compliance – highstandard principles
• Compliance – ready to listen
• Our antimoney laundering, counter terrorist financing, anti-fraud and anti-bribery policies
• Our contribution to the international exchange of tax information and the fight against tax avoidance.

Indosuez has an Ethics Charter and a Code of Conduct which puts the principles of the Charter into practice.

The Code of Conduct is intended to guide all of our actions and decisions and our behaviour on a daily basis. As well as applying all the legal, regulatory and professional rules that govern our activities, the Code of Conduct reflects our commitment to take things further so we can better serve our clients and satisfy all our stakeholders.

> Read the Indosuez Code of Conduct

If you have a complaint regarding your relationship with us, please contact your Wealth Manager or your usual contact person or their supervisor. You will have received their contact details at the start of your client relationship and in your dealings with them.

We will do all we can to address your complaint and get back to you as soon as possible.

If you have any problems regarding payment transactions, you can contact your usual Wealth Manager or use any other means of complaint set out in your contracts.

Because your personal data are invaluable, Indosuez has a specific structure and set-up in place to ensure data confidentiality and security and control the use made of your data (oversight of activities that process personal data, management of data storage, responses to data subjects’ requests to exercise their rights, etc.).

Find out more
data-protection-officer@cfm-indosuez.mc

The financial markets offer many investment opportunities and potential returns, but at the same time they expose investors to a wide variety of risks, which must be clearly indicated to you to ensure they match your risk appetite.

In complex financial markets, Indosuez’s professionals use all their expertise to provide you with appropriate advice.

> Find the Investor's Guide here
> Clients residing in Switzerland specifically can consult the dedicated documentation via this link

By your side, we will assess your financial expertise based on your knowledge and experience of financial products, your financial position and your investment goals.

We will first ensure that all our investment advice and recommendations are fully suited to your risk profile.

Before making any investments, our professionals will provide you with suitable information about the financial products and their inherent risks to ensure you fully understand the transactions you perform.

CFM Indosuez Wealth is authorised by the Monaco Financial Activities Supervisory Commission (CCAF) to carry out the following activities:

• management on behalf of third parties of portfolios of transferable securities or financial futures;
• receipt and transmission of orders on the financial markets relating to securities or forward financial instruments, on behalf of third parties;
• advice and assistance in:
  • the management on behalf of third parties of portfolios of transferable securities or financial futures;
  • the receipt and transmission of orders on the financial markets relating to securities or forward financial instruments, on behalf of third parties;
• management of undertakings for collective investment governed by foreign law.

We invite you to consult the Bank's best execution policy.

1. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this document is to:

• Define conflicts of interest,
• Identify potential conflicts of interest,
• Define the system for preventing and detecting these situations,
• Define the Bank’s approach to managing conflicts and recording them.

2. REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

The Bank’s conflicts of interest policy is in line with Monegasque regulations and more specifically with Law No. 1.338 of 07 September 2007 on Financial Activities, which specifies in particular that authorised companies are required to comply with the prudential and good conduct rules defined by the Sovereign Order.

Sovereign Order No. 1.284 of 10 September 2007 implementing Law No. 1.338 states in its Article 7 that authorised companies are required to comply with rules of good conduct intended to guarantee the protection of investors and the regularity of transactions:

i. act with loyalty and fairness in the best interests of the client and the integrity of the market,

ii. exercise their activity with the competence, care and diligence required in the best interests of the client and the integrity of the market,

iii. have the resources and procedures necessary to carry out their activities,

iv. endeavour to avoid conflicts of interest and, where they cannot be avoided, ensure that their clients are treated fairly.

3. POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

“Conflict of interest” means any professional situation in which the discretion or decision-making power of a person, firm or organisation may be influenced or altered, in its independence or integrity, by personal considerations or by pressure from a third party. In general, a conflict of interest may exist if a situation could adversely affect the interests of a Client.

Situations that may generate conflicts of interest may be, but are not limited to, the following:

• Situations in which the Bank, or a person related to it, is likely to make a financial gain or avoid a financial loss at the expense of the client;
• The Bank or that person has an interest in the outcome of a service provided to the client or a transaction carried out on behalf of the client, which is different from the client’s interest in this outcome;
• The Bank or that person is encouraged to prioritize the interests of another client or group of clients over those of the client concerned;
• The Bank or that person has the same professional activity as the client;
• The Bank or that person receives or will receive from a person other than the client a benefit in relation to the service provided other than the commission or fees normally charged for this service;
• The Bank or that person is heavily involved in the management or development of insurance-based investment products, particularly when it has an influence on the pricing of these products or on their distribution costs.

In the above cases, the Bank must establish, implement and maintain an effective conflict of interest management policy.

4. IDENTIFICATION OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The Bank is required to identify any conflicts of interest that may arise. To this end, the Bank has drawn up a list of situations likely to cause them to occur.
It has put in place an organisational structure as well as internal procedures and controls to detect and manage potential conflicts. Finally, it carried out staff training through the dissemination of its Code of Conduct and related presentations.
In order to minimise the potential for conflicts of interest, the Bank has also implemented an appropriate segregation of tasks and activities.
The Compliance Department is attentive to the detection of any conflicts of interest, particularly during its participation in the various Committees that govern the Bank’s operations.
Members of the Board of Directors and Authorised Management must report all mandates (public or private) that they may hold and specify why they do not believe they are affected by conflicts of interest in the course of their business with the Bank.
Similarly, particular attention is paid to the relationships with related parties, namely the legal entities belonging to the Crédit Agricole Group as well as the employees, shareholders, directors and members of the Boards of Directors of these entities.

5. MANAGING CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Generally speaking, the management of conflicts of interest must refer to the fundamental principle of primacy of the client’s interests over those of the Bank or the person linked to it.

Where the conflict arises between two clients, the Bank must refer to the principle of proportionality and, where applicable, to the principle of primacy of the interests of the client to whom it has made the longest-standing commitments.

The Bank’s Head of Compliance is responsible for putting these principles into practice. He or she is in charge of a department specialised in this type of question and should be referred to as soon as a conflict of interest arises. The management of conflicts is therefore based on his or her intervention.

The management of conflicts of interest can be summarized as follows:

• The member of staff concerned must report the conflict to his or her line manager and to the Head of Compliance, who shall inform the Authorised Management, where applicable;
• Based on the principles set out above, the latter must propose a solution for dealing with the conflict, applying at least the following measures:
  • The elimination of the conflict of interest by choosing the solution that most favours the interests of the client,
  • Pure and simple abstention, if the previous solution is not feasible.
  • As a last resort, informing the client

The Head of Compliance must then:

• Propose corrective actions to avoid conflict situations similar to the one that has just occurred;
• Record in a specific register the conflict that has arisen.

Through the policy set out above, CFM Indosuez Wealth wishes to inform its clients of the possibility that conflicts of interest may arise. It also wants to give them the opportunity to refer to a specialised function of the Bank whose role is to ensure compliance with fundamental ethical principles.

In accordance with legal and regulatory requirements and Crédit Agricole S.A. group’s policy, Indosuez has a specific system in place to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing and bribery and comply with embargos and asset freezes. This system applies in all entities.

Our international obligations are:

• the 40 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued in February 1990 and revised in February 2012 intended to prevent the banking system from being used to launder money of criminal origin,
• Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and repealing Directive 2005/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Commission Directive 2006/70/EC (Text with EEA relevance). This European Union Directive aims to harmonise the approach taken by Member States. It was supplemented by the new Directive 2018/843 of 30 May 2018 (the fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive), which is currently being enacted by the Member States.

National obligations in Monaco mainly arise from:

• Act no. 1362 of 3 August 2009 pertaining to the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism and corruption,
• Act no. 1462 of 28 June 2018 on the fight against money laundering, terrorist financing and corruption, 
• Sovereign Order no. 7065 of 26 July 2018, amending Sovereign Order no. 2318 of 3 August 2009 setting the conditions for application of Act no. 1362 of 3 August 2009 on the fight against money laundering, terrorist financing and corruption.

These laws enact the principles of the international directives referred to above into Monegasque law, with the aim of combating money laundering and terrorist financing by the following means:

• Applying diligence when onboarding new clients and throughout the business relationship,
• Monitoring transaction flows in line with rules governing embargos, asset freezes and the identification of the originator of fund transfers (FATF recommendation 16),
• Reporting suspicious transactions to SICCFIN and responding to requisitions issued by the Monaco Police Department, in particular under international cooperation agreements signed by the Principality of Monaco and other countries.

A Group-wide Directive sets out the organisation and obligations of the Financial Security business line, which is responsible for managing risks relating to money laundering, terrorist financing, bribery, embargos and asset freezes.

This business line is an integral part of the Group’s compliance control system.

It has set up procedures covering:

• know your customer and their beneficial owners: and more specifically,
  • identifying the client and confirming their identity,
  • identifying the beneficial owner and taking reasonable measures to verify their identity,
  • assessing and, as applicable, collecting information on the purpose and envisaged nature of the business relationship,
  • assessing the business relationship on a continuous basis by keeping all documents, data and information up to date..
• the monitoring of transaction flows in line with rules governing embargos (e.g. Fircosoft), asset freezes and the identification of the originator of fund transfers (FATF recommendation 16),
• the reporting of suspicious transactions to the Financial Intelligence Unit,
• training for all relevant members of staff. Crédit Agricole CIB actively contributed to the preparation of the Banking Sector AML-CFT e-learning course under the auspices of the CFPB (a vocational training school for the banking industry) and with the support of the FBF (French Banking Federation),
• verifications that the procedures and measures in place to meet the obligations set out above are duly respected,
• the documentation, archiving and storing of files and the keeping of audit trails.

Crédit Agricole S.A. group has set principles for the sharing of information to help combat money laundering, bribery and terrorist financing.

Each group unit has a Head of Financial Security responsible for implementing the Group’s rules and local obligations. Our commitments are partly set out in the following documents:

• Our AML certification, CFM
• The CFM Wolfsberg Group Anti-Money Laundering Questionnaire
• The US Patriot Act. CFM

Indosuez is actively committed in the fight against unethical, illegal or criminal practices and in the respect of the anti-corruption regulations in force. All members of staff must behave in accordance with French anti-bribery laws (Sapin II Act) and the laws applicable in all our countries of operation. We apply a zero-tolerance policy in this area, for example regarding facilitating payments.

In the event of a suspicious event, we accompany any employee - internal or external - and any supplier wishing to exercise his or her right of alert. For this purpose, a whistleblowing system has been developed. It guarantees a strict confidentiality environment allowing one to expose facts and to communicate with a referent person while protecting the whistleblower’s identity. We need to specify that the whistleblowing right must be exercised disinterestedly and in good faith.

If necessary, the tool is available via the following link: https://www.bkms-system.com/Groupe-Credit-Agricole/ethic-alerts.

FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) is a US regulation aimed at combating tax avoidance by US citizens and residents who hold financial assets outside the United States. The US tax authority (the Internal Revenue Service or IRS) has set up a framework to collect information relating to foreign income and assets held by US taxpayers outside the United States from non-US financial institutions on a yearly basis.

The regulation requires financial institutions to apply procedures to identify US Persons. If they fail to do so, they face a 30% withholding tax on all US-source income received on their own account or on behalf of their clients.

To facilitate the implementation of FATCA, a large number of countries, including France, have negotiated intergovernmental agreements with the United States, whereby they undertake to transpose the tax reporting requirements of FATCA into their national laws.

FATCA ID: CEQ4EV.00069
GIIN (Global Intermediary Identification Number): CEQ4EV.00069.ME.492
Date registration validated: 29/04/2014
Effective registration date: 30/06/2014

In July 2014, the OECD introduced a new standard for the automatic exchange of fiscal information between countries – the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) – in a bid to reduce tax avoidance. Around sixty countries including France undertook to exchange tax information under this new standard from 2017, and thirty others signed up from 2018.

At the same time, on 9 December 2014, the Council of the European Union adopted a revised Directive on administrative cooperation (Directive 2014/107/EU, amending Directive 2011/16/EU). The new Directive, which is based on the OECD standard, extends the scope of the mandatory automatic exchange of tax information between European Union Member States.

The standard requires financial institutions (banks, depositories, life insurance companies, etc.) operating in participating countries to identify fiscal resident account holders in countries with which an information exchange agreement has been signed, and to transmit the associated information (account holder’s contact details, account balances, income, revenues from securities, etc.) to their tax authority each year. The tax authority will pass the information on to the relevant authorities.

The EU Regulation 2019/2088 on Sustainability Reporting in the Financial Services Sector (SFDR) which came into force on 10 March 2021 requires its players to publish their policies with respect to:

• the integration of sustainability risks into their investment decision-making process,
• the consideration of the main negative impacts of investment decisions on sustainability factors,
• the integration of sustainability risks into their remuneration policy.

Information concerning Indosuez Wealth Management group:

• ESG Policy of Indosuez Wealth Management group
• Sustainability risk policy of Indosuez Wealth Management group 
• Indosuez Wealth Management group policy for taking into account the Principle Adverse Impacts (PAIs) of investment decisions on sustainability factors