This Government bill, part of the Ministry of Justice regulatory systems package, aims to make New Zealand's anti-money-laundering and terrorism-financing regime more risk-based, efficient, and effective. It was enacted as the AML/CFT Amendment Act 2026.
This Government bill reforms the anti-money-laundering and countering-financing-of-terrorism (AML/CFT) rules — the customer-checking and reporting duties that apply to banks, lawyers, accountants, real estate agents and similar businesses. Its focus is making the regime more "risk-based": tailoring obligations to the actual risk an activity poses, so genuinely low-risk situations (for example certain low-risk trusts) face lighter requirements while high-risk ones stay tightly controlled. It also cuts duplicated reporting and other compliance steps the Government considers "costly box-ticking," aiming to reduce red tape without weakening the fight against serious financial crime.
It sits within the Ministry of Justice's regulatory-systems programme and complements the wider AML/CFT overhaul. Supporters argue it frees businesses and supervisors to focus effort where money-laundering risk is genuinely present, lowering compliance costs. Critics caution that loosening requirements could open gaps that criminals exploit, and that New Zealand must keep meeting international standards (set by the Financial Action Task Force) to protect its access to global finance.
See the Parliament.nz ↗ site for the full bill.