Latvijas Pasts calls on the customers of the Postal Payments System to update their identity document data

08.03.2017

Latvijas Pasts calls on all customers who use payment accounts with the Postal Payments System (PNS) and whose identity documents have been changed since the opening of the account to update their identity document data until the 1^st of June 2017, thus fulfilling the requirement contained in the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing. The customers whose identity documents have not yet expired since the opening of the account with the PNS will have to update their data at the time when their ID has expired and a new document is received.

Owners of PNS accounts may update their identity document data in any post office until the 1st of June 2017. To do this, there is no need to visit the post office especially for this purpose, as there is a possibility to update the data when making a payment or receiving money from one’s account. Updating applies only to those customers whose identity documents have been changed since the opening of the PNS account. In turn, the customers whose identity documents have remained the same since their PNS account was opened will have to update their data only after the ID has expired and a new ID is received.

When updating the data, the post office operator will enter the information from the new identity document shown by the customer and attach a copy of this document that can be either submitted to the post office by the customer or copied on the spot in most of the post offices. 

The improvement and updating of the PNS records is carried out to comply with the requirements laid down in Section 17 of the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, which also applies to Latvijas Pasts as a payment service provider. Every owner of a PNS account who is subject to the provision of updating the identity document data until the 1^st of June 2017, but who will not have the data updated will have to do so after that date at the time when he or she wants to use his or her account.

It should be recalled that amendments to the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing came into force on the 29^th of February 2016, changing the definition of politically exposed persons and obliging banks and financial institutions to identify which of the customers and beneficial owners of the customers are considered to be politically exposed persons.

Therefore Latvijas Pasts, which maintains the PNS and thus is regarded as a financial institution within the meaning of the mentioned law, has called on the owners of PNS accounts to fill in the Customer’s Questionnaire since the entry into force of the amendments to the Law. The customers who have not filled in the questionnaire cannot operate their account with the PNS. 

There are nearly 300,000 payment accounts opened with the PNS.

About SJSC Latvijas Pasts

Latvijas Pasts ensures the widest availability of postal services throughout Latvia by maintaining more than 600 post offices. The primary function of the company is provision of the universal postal service; Latvijas Pasts also provides commercial transport, express mail, payment, press subscription, retail and philatelic services. Latvijas Pasts is a wholly State-owned company with more than 4,200 employees. The quality measurements of Latvijas Pasts domestic mail deliveries are regularly conducted by TNS Latvia, one of the leading market, social and media research agencies in Latvia. In turn, the quality measurements of the cross-border deliveries are provided within the framework of the International Post Corporation through the intermediary of the research companies TNS, Ipsos and Quotas.

Additional information:
Gundega Vārpa
Head of External Communications 
Phone: +371 67608505
E-mail: pr@pasts.lv; gundega.varpa@pasts.lv
twitter.com/latvijas_pasts; 
facebook.com/latvijas.pasts