Guide for Electronic Registration of Money Services Businesses

Appendix 2C - Agent Maintenance and Agent Location Maintenance

Throughout these instructions, whenever the word "agent" is used, it includes an agent or a mandatary.

If you use agents to deliver MSB services, you need to provide information about all your agents in your registration form (Part C1). Many, but not all, of the fields in Part C1 are based on the information entered in the agent maintenance screens.

The agent maintenance screens are accessed from the Administration section of the left menu. This is for part of the information about your agents and their locations.

If this is the first registration form for your MSB, no agents will be displayed in the first Agent Maintenance screen. If you already have agents included, to view or modify information about them, select the button at the right end of the row to open either the Agent Editor or Agent location Maintenance screen.

To add a new agent, select "Add agent" so that a blank Agent Editor screen can open.

You can only modify or add information about an agent or the agent's location in the following situations:

• You are completing your first registration form.
• You have started a modification or renewal.
• You have started answering a clarification request from FINTRAC.

If your money services business has many agents, you may want to provide information (including updates) for them using batch files. For more information about submitting information about agents by batch, contact us.

Agent Editor

The following are field-by-field instructions for the Agent Editor screen.

Status

The status of an agent can be active or inactive. An active status means that this agent's information is included in Part C1. The inactive status makes the agent's information hidden for Part C1, but it remains in MSB Registration in case you need to reactivate that agent's information later. The inactive status will also hide all the locations for that agent.

Field 1 Agent identifier

Enter an agent identifier number in field 1. This is a unique number (up to 15 alpha or numeric characters) that you need to assign for each one of your agents.

Fields 1A to 1F Legal name of agent

For an agent that is an entity, if it has an English legal name, enter it (up to 45 characters) in field 1a. If it has a French legal name, enter it in field 1b. If it has a bilingual legal name, enter it in field 1c. In this case, fields 1d to 1f are not applicable.

If your agent is an individual, enter the individual's surname (up to 20 characters), given name (up to 15 characters) and initial(s) (if applicable, up to ten characters) in fields 1d to 1f. In this case, fields 1a to 1c are not applicable.

Field 2 Trade names or operating names

If your agent operates under one or more trading names or operating names (that are different from the legal name in field 1), enter them in field 2 (up to 60 characters each).

If you have to enter one or more new trade or operating names, select "Add" to provide each one.

If you have to delete one or more trade names or operating names shown for an agent, choose the name to delete and select "Remove selected".

Fields 3 to 8 Location information

Assign a unique number (up to 15 alpha or numeric characters) for this location information and enter it as the agent location identifier in field 3. Enter a location name for this location information in field 4.

Enter the business street address (up to 30 characters), town or city (up to 25 characters), province or territory (from the drop-down menu) and postal code (six characters) in fields 5 to 8.

If this agent has other locations, you can enter them after you have saved the agent information, by selecting "Agent Location Maintenance" at the bottom of the screen. You do not need to do this if the agent is one of the following:

• an accountant,
• a bank, a caisse populaire, a co-op credit society, a credit union, a provincial savings office or a trust and loan company (effective July 31, 2010, this will also include a financial services cooperative and a credit union central),
• a casino,
• an agent of the Crown,
• a life insurance company, broker or agent,
• a money services business,
• a British Columbia notary public or a British Columbia notary corporation,
• a dealer in precious metals and stones,
• a securities dealer, or
• in real estate (including a real estate broker or sales representative or a real estate developer).

When you are adding new information or making changes in Agent Editor, select "Save" to ensure the information is saved. The information in Agent Editor is used to pre‑populate fields 1 to 7 in Part C1 of the registration form. You also have to provide other information for that agent in Part C1.

After you have saved the information in Agent Editor, if you need to modify the agent's location information shown in fields 3 to 8 of the Agent Editor, you will need to access the Agent Location Editor, as explained below.

Agent Location Editor

If your agent has more than one location, provide information about other locations only if your agent is not itself a reporting entity. In other words, do not provide more than one address for an agent if that agent is one of the following:

• an accountant,
• a bank, a caisse populaire, a co-op credit society, a credit union, a provincial savings office or a trust and loan company (effective July 31, 2010, this will also include a financial services cooperative and a credit union central),
• a casino,
• an agent of the Crown,
• a life insurance company, broker or agent,
• a money services business,
• a British Columbia notary public or a British Columbia notary corporation,
• a dealer in precious metals and stones,
• a securities dealer, or
• in real estate (including a real estate broker or sales representative or a real estate developer).

For example, if your agent is a drugstore that issues money orders and traveller's cheques, you would have to give the address for each drugstore location where they act as your agent because the drugstore is not itself a reporting entity.

The following are field-by-field instructions for the Agent Location Editor, which is how to view, modify or add agent locations.

Once you have selected "Agent location maintenance" at the bottom of the Agent Editor screen, or selected "Location details" on the Agent Maintenance screen, you will get the Agent Location Maintenance screen. The agent's name for which you can view, modify or add a location address will be displayed at the top. To add a location address for that agent, select "Add agent location". The Agent Location Editor will open. To view or modify the already included main address or an already included other location, select the button at the right end of the row to open the Agent Location Editor.

Status

The status of an agent's address can be active or inactive. An active status means that this address is displayed in Part C1. The inactive status makes the address hidden for Part C1, but remains in MSB Registration in case you need to reactivate it later.

Field 1 Agent location identifier

Assign a unique number (up to 15 alpha or numeric characters) for this address information and enter it as the agent location identifier in field 1.

Field 2 Location name

Enter a location name for this address in field 2.

Fields 3 to 6 Address

Enter the business street address (up to 30 characters), town or city (up to 25 characters), province or territory (from the drop-down menu) and postal code (six characters) in fields 3 to 6.

When you are adding new information or making changes in Agent Location Editor, select "Save" to ensure the information is saved. The address information for each location is used to pre‑populate the agent's main address in fields 3 to 6 of Part C1 of the registration form, or the agent's other locations in field 12 of Part C1 of the registration form.