Legal Acts in English

This Law shall lay down actions and measures for preventing and detecting money laundering and terrorism financing.

This Law shall govern the competencies of the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering (hereinafter referred to as: the Administration) and the competencies of other bodies in the implementation of the provisions of this Law.

For the purposes of this Law, money laundering shall mean the following:

1)  conversion or transfer of property acquired through the commission of a criminal offence;

2)  concealment or misrepresentation of the true nature, source, location, movement, disposition, ownership of or rights with respect to the property acquired through the commission of a criminal offence;

3)  acquisition, possession, or use of property acquired through the commission of a criminal offence.

Money laundering, for the purpose of this Law, shall imply the activities from paragraph 1 of this Article, performed outside the territory of the Republic of Serbia.

For the purpose of this Law, terrorism financing shall mean the providing or collecting of funds or property, or an attempt to do so, with the intention of using them, or in the knowledge that they may be used, fully or partially:

1)  in order to carry out a terrorist act;

2)  by terrorists;

3)  by terrorist organizations.

The financing of terrorism shall be understood to mean aiding and abetting in the provision or collection of property, regardless of whether a terrorist act was committed or whether property was used for the commission of a terrorist act.

For the purpose of this Law, a terrorist act shall mean the criminal offence specified in the treaties listed in the annex to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, as well as any other act intended to cause death or a serious bodily injury to a civilian or any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.

For the purpose of this Law, a terrorist shall mean a person who individually or together with other persons wilfully:

1)  attempts or commits an act of terrorism in any way, directly or indirectly;

2)  aids and abets in the commission of a terrorist act;

3)  has knowledge of an intention of a group of terrorists to commit an act of terrorism, contribute to the commission, or assist in the continuation of the commission of a terrorist act to a group acting with a common purpose.

For the purpose of this Law, a terrorist organization shall mean a group of terrorists which:

1)  attempts or commits an act of terrorism in any way, directly or indirectly;

2)  aids and abets in the commission of a terrorist act;

3)  has knowledge of an intention of a group of terrorists to commit an act of terrorism, contribute to the commission, or assist in the continuation of the commission of a terrorist act to a group acting with a common purpose.

Certain terms, for the purpose of this Law shall have the following meanings:

1) property shall mean the assets, money, rights, digital assets, securities and other documents in any form whatsoever, for which the right of ownership and other rights can be established;

2) money shall mean cash (domestic and foreign), funds in accounts (RSD and foreign currency) and electronic money as well as other instruments of payment;

3) physically transferable instruments of payment shall mean cash, cheques, promissory notes and other physically transferable instruments of payment, payable to bearer;

4) person under foreign law, shall be a legal form of organization for the purpose of managing and disposing of property which is non-existent in the local legislation (e.g.: trust, anstalt, fiduciaries, fideicommissum and similar);

5) customer shall mean a natural person, entrepreneur, legal entity, person under foreign law and person under civil law or a person that carries out a transaction or establishes a business relation with the obligor;

6) trust shall mean a person under foreign law, which, one person, the founder (settlor, trustor) establishes for life or after death, whereby entrusting the property for disposal and management to the commissioner (trustee) for the benefit of the user (beneficiary) or for a specifically designated purpose, whereby: the property is not part of the assets of the settler of the trust; the right of ownership of the trust property shall be held by the trustee holding, using or disposing of the property of it in favour of the beneficiary or the trustor, and in accordance with the terms of trust; the trust deed may entrust the performance of certain tasks to the protector (trust protector), whose main role is to ensure that the property of the trust is disposed of and managed so as to fully achieve the objectives of establishing the trust; the beneficiary shall mean a natural person or group of persons in whose interest has the person under foreign law, been established or is operating, regardless of whether the person or the group of persons has been defined or can be defined;

7) transaction shall mean the acceptance, provision, conversion, keeping, disposal of or other dealing with property in the obligor, including also the payment transaction for the purpose of the law governing the provision of payment services, as well as transactions involving digital assets within the meaning of the law governing digital assets;

8) cash transaction shall mean the physical acceptance or provision of cash to a customer;

9) persons under civil law shall be the associations of individual margining or who shall merge money or other property for a specific purpose;

10) beneficial owner of a customer shall be a natural person who either directly or indirectly owns or controls a customer; a customer as set forth by this item shall include the natural person as well;

11) beneficial owner of a company, and/or any other legal entity shall be the following:

(1) natural person who owns, directly or indirectly, 25% or more of the business share, shares, voting right or other rights, based on which they participate in the management of the legal entity, or who participates in the capital of the legal entity with 25% or more of the share, or a natural persons who directly or indirectly has a dominant position in managing the operations and decision-making;

(2) natural person who has provided or provides funds to a company in an indirect manner, which entitles him/her to influence significantly the decisions made by the managing bodies of the company concerning its financing and business operations;

12) the beneficial owner of the trust shall be the settler, the trustee, the commissioner, the beneficiary, if specified, as well as the person holding a dominant position in trust management; the provision of this item shall be in analogy applied to the beneficial owner of the other person under foreign law;

13) business relationship shall mean a business, either professional or commercial relationship, between a customer and the obligor relating to the business activity of the obligor and that is expected, at the time of establishment, to have an element of duration;

14) a correspondent relationship shall imply:

(1) provision of banking services by a bank as a correspondent to another bank, as a respondent, including the services of opening and maintaining current and other accounts, and services related thereto, such as cash flow management, international transfer of monetary and other funds, clearing cheques and foreign-currency operations,

(2) relations among banks and/or credit institutions, as well as among banks and/or credit institutions and other financial institutions in which the correspondent institution offers to the respondent, including the relations established for the purpose of performing transactions with financial instruments or transfer of monetary and other funds;

15) a shell bank shall mean a foreign bank or another financial institution performing the business corresponding to the operations of the bank or other financial institution, which is registered in a state where its actual seat is located, and/or there is no physical presence of the management body and which is not part of any financial group governed by relevant regulations;

16) digital assets, virtual currency, digital token, transactions involving digital assets, issuing of digital assets, issuer of digital assets and digital assets address shall have the meanings laid down by the law governing digital assets;

17) digital assets service provider shall mean the legal person that provides one or more digital assets services laid down by the law governing digital assets;

18) personal document shall be a valid document with a photo issued by the competent state body;

19) official document shall be a document issued by an official or responsible person within their authorities, whereas such persons shall be considered as those defined in the provisions of the Criminal Code (Službeni glasnik RS, Nos. 85/05, 88/05 - corrigendum, 107/05 - corrigendum, 72/09, 111/09, 121/12, 104/13, 108/14 and 94/16);

20) information on the activity of a customer who is a natural person shall mean information on the personal, professional, or similar capacity of the customer (employed, retired, student, unemployed, etc), and/or information on the activities of the customer (in the area of sports, culture and art, science and research, education or other area) which serve as the basis to establish a business relationship;

21) information on the activities of a customer who is an entrepreneur, legal entity, person under foreign law or person under civil law shall mean information on the type of business activities of a customer, business relations and business partners, business results, and similar information;

22) off-shore legal entity shall be a foreign legal entity which does not operate or may not perform any production or trade business activities in the state of its registration;

23) anonymous company shall mean a foreign legal entity with unknown owners or managers;

24) official shall mean the official of another state, the official of an international organization and the official of the Republic of Serbia;

25) official of another state shall be a natural person performing or who in the past four years has been holding a high public office of another state and in particular:

(1) head of the state and/or government, government member or his/her deputy,

(2) elected representative of a legislative body,

(3) judge of the supreme and constitutional courts or of other high-level judicial bodies the judgments of which are not subject to further regular or extraordinary legal remedies, save in exceptional cases,

(4) member of the court of auditors, and/or supreme audit institution and members of the central bank management body,

(5) ambassadors, chargés d'affaires and high-ranking officers in the armed forces,

(6) member of the managing and supervisory body of a legal entity whose majority owner is the state,

(7) member of the management body of a political party;

26) official of an international organization shall be a natural person performing or who has in the past four years held high public office in an international organization such as: the director, deputy director, member of a management body, or other equivalent office in an international organization;

27) official of the Republic of Serbia shall mean a natural person holding or who has, in the past four years been holding a high public office within the country, and in particular:

(1) president of the state, president of the Government, minister, state secretary, special advisor to the minister, assistant to the minister, secretary of the ministry, director of the body within the ministry and his/her assistants, and the director of a special organization, such as his/her deputy and his/her assistants,

(2) member of the parliament,

(3) judges of the Supreme Court of Cassation, Commercial Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court,

(4) president, vice-president and the member of the Council of the State Audit Institution,

(5) governor, vice-governor and the member of the Council of Governors of the National Bank of Serbia,

(6) person at a high position of diplomatic and consular missions (ambassador, general consul, chargés d'affaires),

(7) member of a management body within a public enterprise or company in majority ownership of the state,

(8) member of the management body of a political party;

28) close family member of an official shall include the spouse or extra-marital partner, parents, brothers and sisters, children, adopted or stepchildren, and their spouses or extra-marital partners;

29) close associate of an official shall include any natural person who has benefit from a joint ownership or from established business relation or who has any other close business relations with an official (e.g.: natural person who is the formal owner of the legal entity or a person under foreign law, and the actual profit of which is realized by the official);

30) the highest management shall be a person or a group of persons who, in line with the law, manage and organize the operations of the obligors and who is responsible for ensuring the legality of operations;

31) transfer of funds shall mean any transaction that is at least in one part, performed electronically by the provider of payment services on behalf of the payer, with the aim of having these funds available for the beneficiary of the transfer with the provider of the payment services, regardless of whether the payor or the payment beneficiary are one and the same person and whether the payor's provider of the payment services and the provider of the payment services of the beneficiary are one and the same person, including the payment transaction being performed:

(1) transfer of approval, direct debit or money transfer, for the purpose of the law governing payment services,

(2) using a payment card, payment instrument that serves for the disposal of electronic money, a mobile phone, or any other digital or information and technological device, with similar features;

32) batch file transfer shall be a set of several individual money transfers, grouped for the purpose of their joint transfer;

33) the provider of the payment services shall be the bank, the institution of electronic money, a payment institution, the National Bank of Serbia, the Treasury or other bodies of public authority within the Republic of Serbia, in line with their competences set forth by the law, as well as the public postal operator with its seat in the Republic of Serbia, established in line with the law governing postal services;

34) the payor shall be a natural person or a legal entity who, to his/her payment account issues payment orders or gives consent for the execution of the payment transaction based on the payment order issued by the beneficiary of payment, and in case such payment account is not available - the natural person or legal entity issuing a payment order;

35) the recipient of payment shall be the natural person or legal entity who has been set as the beneficiary of the funds which are subject of the payment transaction;

36) the payment chain intermediary is the provider of payment services who is not in contractual relationship neither with the payor or the payment beneficiary, and is taking part in the execution of the transfer of funds;

37) the payment account shall be the account used for the execution of payment transactions, and which is maintained by the provider of the payment services for one or several users of payment services;

38) the uniform identification mark is a combination of letters, numbers and/or symbols set by the provider of payment services to the payment service beneficiary and which, within a payment transaction is used for unambiguous identification of the beneficiary and/or his/her payment account;

39) the uniform transaction mark shall be a combination of letters, numbers and/or symbols which the provider of payment services determines for a payment transaction, in line with the rules of the payment system, i.e. the system for settlement or the system for the exchange of messages used for the transfer of funds, and which enables access to the data on the flow of funds and the payor and the payment beneficiary, as per specific payment transaction;

40) prior criminal offence shall be the criminal offence producing property which is subject of a criminal offence of money laundering, regardless of whether it has been committed in the Republic of Serbia or abroad;

41) unusual transaction shall mean the transaction deviating from the usual manner of operation of the obligor party.

42) money remittance payment service shall bear the meaning set forth in the law governing the provision of payment services;

43) games of chance shall be the games in which the participants, on payment of consideration, are provided a possibility of realizing a reward in cash, items, services or rights, whereas profit or loss shall not depend on the knowledge or skill of those taking part in the games, but rather on the chance or some uncertain event, such as lotteries, casino games, poker games or betting, played in gaming facilities, or by means of electronic communication or any other form of communication technology;

44) a financial group shall be a group of persons in a financial sector which comprise the highest, parent company of a legal entity, its subordinate companies, affiliated companies of dependent companies of a legal entities and related legal entities;

45) the highest parent company of a legal entity, a subordinate company, a dependent company, an affiliated company and a related company shall bear the meaning set forth by the law governing banks