The Financial Supervision Office (“BFT”) was established in 1999 as an autonomous administrative authority. It is a continuation of the former Central Office for Assistance which was set up in 1933 by the Ministry of Justice in order to monitor the accounting records of civil-law notaries. Later on, in 1999, the supervisory task was extended to the clients’ accounts of Court bailiffs. Since 2003, the BFT is also responsible for the supervision in connection with legislation on the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism (“AML/CFT”) regarding the following professionals: (junior) civil-law notaries, lawyers, accountants/auditors, tax advisers, business consultants and independent legal advisers.Supervision pursuant to AML & CFTThe Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act (“Wwft”) aims, in particular, to be an effective instrument against money laundering and terrorist financing by means of risk-based customer due diligence (CDD) with the identification and verification of the identity of the client to which a particular service is provided. Customer due diligence is not only of great importance to prevent criminals from integrating illegal monies into the financial system, but also obliges the professional to report an unusual transaction. The Wwft stipulates that these professional service providers are required to report such unusual transactions, based on indicators (“guidelines”), for registration and analysing purposes to the Financial Intelligence Unit-the Netherlands (FIU-NL). The FIU determines which transactions will be sent as a suspicious transaction to investigation and prosecution authorities.