Annex III Higher risk factors

the business relationshipmeans a business, professional or commercial relationship connected with the professional activities of an obliged entity, which is set up between an obliged entity and a customer, including in the absence of a written contract and which is expected to have, at the time when the contact is established, or which subsequently acquires, an element of repetition or duration; or occasional transaction is conducted in unusual circumstances;

customers that are resident in geographical areas of higher risk as set out in point (3);

legal persons or legal arrangementsmeans an express trust or an arrangement which has a similar structure or function to an express trust, including fiducie and certain types of Treuhand and fideicomiso; that are personal asset-holding vehicles;

corporate entities that have nominee shareholders or shares in bearer form;

businesses that are cash-intensive;

the ownership structure of the company appears unusual or excessively complex given the nature of the company’s business;

customer is a third-country national who applies for residence rights in a Member State in exchange of any kind of investment, including capital transfers, purchase or renting of property, investment in government bonds, investment in corporate entities, donation or endowment of an activity contributing to the public good and contributions to the state budget;

customer is a legal entity or arrangement created or set up in a jurisdiction in which it has no real economic activity, substantial economic presence or apparent economic rationale;

customer is directly or indirectly owned by one or several entities or arrangements under point (h);

private banking;

products or transactions that might favour anonymity;

payment received from unknown or unassociated third parties;

new products and new business practices, including new delivery mechanism, and the use of new or developing technologies for both new and pre-existing products;

transactions related to oil, arms, precious metals or stones, tobacco products, cultural artefacts and other items of archaeological, historical, cultural and religious importance, or of rare scientific value, as well as ivory and protected species;

third countriesmeans any jurisdiction, independent state or autonomous territory that is not part of the Union and that has its own AML/CFT legislation or enforcement regime; subject to increased monitoring or otherwise identified by the FATF due to the compliance weaknesses in their AML/CFT systems;

third countriesmeans any jurisdiction, independent state or autonomous territory that is not part of the Union and that has its own AML/CFT legislation or enforcement regime; identified by credible sources / acknowledged processes, such as mutual evaluations, detailed assessment reports or published follow-up reports, as not having effective AML/CFT systems;

third countriesmeans any jurisdiction, independent state or autonomous territory that is not part of the Union and that has its own AML/CFT legislation or enforcement regime; identified by credible sources / acknowledged processes as having significant levels of corruption or other criminal activitymeans criminal activity as defined in Article 2, point (1), of Directive (EU) 2018/1673, as well as fraud affecting the Union’s financial interests as defined in Article 3(2) of Directive (EU) 2017/1371, passive and active corruption as defined in Article 4 (2) and misappropriation as defined in Article 4(3), second subparagraph, of that Directive;;

third countriesmeans any jurisdiction, independent state or autonomous territory that is not part of the Union and that has its own AML/CFT legislation or enforcement regime; subject to sanctions, embargos or similar measures issued by, for example, the Union or the UN;

third countriesmeans any jurisdiction, independent state or autonomous territory that is not part of the Union and that has its own AML/CFT legislation or enforcement regime; providing funding or support for terrorist activities, or that have designated terrorist organisations operating within their country;

third countriesmeans any jurisdiction, independent state or autonomous territory that is not part of the Union and that has its own AML/CFT legislation or enforcement regime; identified by credible sources or pursuant to acknowledged processes as enabling financial secrecy by: