'Source of funds' questionnaire

Electro_Magnet

Hi all,


I made a small investment with Jupiter Unit Trust Managers Ltd approximately 8 years ago. This was from a small amount of money I had made doing odd jobs and part-time work in my early 20s.


I've asked Jupiter to sell my investment as I want to take the cash, but they have insisted they will not release my money until I return a "source of funds questionnaire" which they have sent me.



The form asks me to select from a series of options and to provide details including "job description", "annual salary including bonuses" and "nature of employment". To be honest I'm not very happy with this. I don't feel comfortable giving this information to them, even if I could remember all the jobs I was doing 8 years ago.



I wanted to ask if this is a legal requirement, or just something they've made up? I searched online but couldn't find much about such questionnaires.



I've considered ticking the "Other" option and putting something ironic, but that probably wouldn't get me anywhere.


Has anyone else experienced this? Is this common when you make investments? Can Jupiter actually withhold my cash until I've completed this form?



Your advice appreciated, thanks!

dealer_wins

Thanks for posting this, a company to avoid IMO.

I get these requests from online casinos occasinally, and I immediately close my account with them.

I dont mind showing any company a screenshot of my bank account being debited, and my ID, but as for personal financial info, they can F right off.

In your situation I would reply saying you are not going to provide private sensitive information, and that you want your account closed immediately and funds returned. If they dont comply take it to the regulator.

maninthestreet

Why are they asking this now? These are the sort of questions they should have asked at the time you applied to invest money with them.

Alexland

I guess they didn't ask at the time so have incomplete records.

coyrls

Don't they have an option to say it was funded from "savings"? If so, just tick that.

Terry_Towelling

Isn't this just connected with money-laundering regulations? Presumably they just want to tick their boxes to have everything complete in case of some sort of inspection or problem. I doubt they actually intend to check any of it.

Perhaps just give them one of the jobs and a rough idea of the wage. You could do as @coyrls suggests and tell them 'savings' - that always features in my declarations. In a way it is right because you saved it from work you had previously done, but I suspect the logic behind that 'box' is that declaring it as 'previously saved' means you already declared its origins when previously saving it, and if it wasn't 'hookey' then, it can't be now.

AnotherJoe

I agree these questions are ridiculous and intrusive. I'm torn between telling them to get stuffed and just return the money, and some interesting answers such as saggermakers bottom knocker for occupation, etc.

coyrls

Well you could take the view that everything is funded from "savings" because otherwise you would have spent it.

dunstonh

The anti-money laundering regs were changed a few years back to include withdrawals as well as money in.

Terry_Towelling

dunstonh wrote: »

The anti-money laundering regs were changed a few years back to include withdrawals as well as money in.

Does that potentially mean that if you ticked various boxes when depositing and then have to do the same when exiting the account many years later, you might get caught out if your declarations don't match?

dunstonh

Terry_Towelling wrote: »

Does that potentially mean that if you ticked various boxes when depositing and then have to do the same when exiting the account many years later, you might get caught out if your declarations don't match?

If you didnt do it on the way in, you would expect it to be requested on the way out. It also depends on how well they did it on the way in and if they still have the records.

if you did it on the way in, then its unlikely you would need it on the way out but there is a potential issue in future.

The 4th Money Laundering directive said firms should delete AML data after the expiry of a minimum retention period of five years. i.e. they could hold on to it much longer if they felt it was necessary. This basically meant indefinitely pre GDPR.

The 5th Money laundering directive final text was published in June 2018. It changed it to 5 years. This gives it an exact time frame rather than being at least that number of years. Under the GDPR, some firms may interpret that as a strict deletion point. Indeed, I have already seen one compliance bulletin from a major UK compliance company say that they recommend 5 years deletion (and they do compliance not just for article 3 firms like IFAs but also discretionary fund managers and investment management companies). I suspect most will not delete in 5 years and will use legal liability as the reason.