PANAMA Law and Practice Contributed by: Kharla Aizpurua O., Roberto Vidal and Miguel Arias, Morgan & Morgan
truthfully and without inducing confusion. For example, credit products must expressly and visibly indicate the total amount of the debt, the effective interest rate applied and its calculation method, the commissions, and the natural or legal person providing the credit. 2.12 Review of Industry Participants by Parties Other than Regulators Assuming that industry participants have some kind of registration or licensing, they will gener - ally be required to obtain audited financial state - ments from auditing firms and present them to the regulators, along with other information. 2.13 Conjunction of Unregulated and Regulated Products and Services Industry participants generally do not offer unregulated products and services in conjunc - tion with regulated ones. However, different legal entities within the same economic group can offer regulated and unregulated products separately, and regulators have not opposed this practice. In any case, this must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine the regula - tor’s possible interpretation. 2.14 Impact of AML and Sanctions Rules Anti-money laundering ( “AML” ) rules impact fin - tech companies because the regulation does not distinguish between established legacy players and fintech companies. Thus, the obligations and responsibilities will be the same across the board except for specific vertical regulations. Law 23 of 2015( “Law 23” ) adopts measures to prevent money laundering, the financing of ter - rorism and the financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and dictates other provisions which are further regulated by Execu - tive Decree 363 of 2015( “Regulation of Law 23” ). Article 22 of Law 23 lists the financially obliged
subjects, which the SBP supervises in matters of compliance with Law 23, the Regulation of Law 23, and other corresponding agreements related to the prevention of money laundering, financing of terrorism and financing of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (the “Compliance Laws” ). The Compliance Laws establish a series of measures that financial obliged subjects must implement to prevent the improper use of their services. It is worth noting that it is possible for an entity to be subject to the Compliance Laws but not sub - ject to licensing requirements. For example, enti - ties dedicated to payment processing services and issuers of electronic money are financially obliged subjects and must register with the SBP in order to comply with the Compliance Laws, but they are not required to obtain a licence for their activities. Thus, a fintech company may not be required to have a licence from any of the regulators, but it could be subject to registration requirements with the SBP only for the purposes of the Compliance Laws. Law 23 establishes a regime of administrative sanctions for those who violate its provisions. The supervisory bodies will apply sanctions con - sidering the seriousness of the offence, its recur - rence, and the damage caused. Sanctions may include fines of between USD5,000 and USD5 million, which may be imposed on individuals and entities that fail to comply. In addition, pro - gressive sanctions are provided for continuous violations, and corporate responsibility is estab - lished, attributing the acts of employees to the obliged entity. 2.15 Financial Action Task Force Standards Panama’s Compliance Laws are generally aligned with the standards of the Financial
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