BNU considers client data sharing legal

Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU) has confirmed its data sharing with its parent company to be part of a legal consolidated supervision mechanism, in statements to Business Daily. In recent months, BNU clients have received a letter requesting an update of personal data and their authorisation for this data to be shared with Macau bank’s parent company Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) in Portugal. This request has raised concerns that their data would be shared with the Tax Authority of Portugal for effects of tax requests and in the same letter – defined as a ‘Know Your Client’ (KYC) letter – clients were informed that refusal to authorise the data sharing would be cause for termination of their banking services. ‘Consolidated supervision is a legal and regulatory requirement that aims to ensure the stability of financial institutions and markets,’ BNU stated to Business Daily, adding such mechanisms are created to ensure ‘parent companies have access to the necessary information of their subsidiaries and branches in order to verify the soundness of their Groups.’ BNU also guaranteed the information wouldn’t be shared with the Tax Authority of Portugal and that discontinuing progressively the commercial relationship due to refusal is ‘legal’. According to the Monetary Authority of Macau, KYC letters are part of the ‘prevention and suppression of money laundering and terrorist financing crimes,’ and in the BNU Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism Disclosure Statement, KYC letters are considered part of the obligation to identify and perform due diligence on customers and to classify customer’s risk profile based on ML/TF (Money Laundering/Terrorism Financing) risk.