Agent and Employee Records for MSBs

PCMLTFA s. 6 sets the baseline: every reporting entity must keep records in accordance with the regulations. For an MSB's agents and employees, the prescribed records fall into three families: the agent and branch listing filed with FINTRAC at registration, criminal-record documents for agents and their key persons, and the compliance-program documentation — policies, training records and effectiveness-review results — required by PCMLTFR s. 156.

What is not on that list surprises many operators: no PCMLTFA or PCMLTFR provision requires an MSB to create or keep a written agency agreement as a prescribed record. Written agreements remain standard practice, and FINTRAC's compliance-program guidance expects your two-year effectiveness review to include a review of your agreements with agents or mandataries — but that expectation sits in guidance, not regulation. Compliance manuals that cite a "written agency agreement record" to the regulations are citing something that does not exist.

Your agent network is disclosed to FINTRAC through registration, not record-keeping rules. The PCMLTF Registration Regulations (SOR/2007-121), Schedule 1, Part C require the application to list each agent, mandatary and branch: name and operating name, address, telephone number, services provided, and the relationship (agent, mandatary or branch). Section 4 requires you to notify FINTRAC of changes to application information — so agent onboarding and offboarding should trigger a registration update, not just an internal file note.

Documenting the guidance side is straightforward: keep signed agreement versions with dates, and record when the effectiveness review examined them and what it found. The review itself must be carried out and its results documented every two years by an internal or external auditor under PCMLTFR s. 156(3).

Since October 1, 2025, PCMLTFA s. 9.93 requires an MSB to obtain and review criminal-record documents for each agent or mandatary before engaging them. Where the agent is an entity, the check extends to its key persons: the chief executive officer, the president, the directors, and anyone who owns 20% or more of it. The obligation recurs — a fresh review is due within 30 days after the second anniversary of the most recent review. Documents not in an official language need an attested translation under s. 9.93(3).

PCMLTFR s. 37.1 adds the evidence rules examiners will test: the documents must have been issued no more than six months before the review, and they must be retained for five years after they are obtained. Operationally, that means recording the issue date of every check, diarizing a two-year review cycle per agent, and keeping the superseded documents on file rather than replacing them.

PCMLTFR s. 156(1) requires a written, ongoing compliance training program for your employees, agents or mandataries, and any other persons authorized to act on your behalf — and separately requires you to institute and document a training plan and actually deliver the training. The two halves matter: examiners look for the program document, the plan, and delivery evidence. In practice that means a dated log of who completed which module, when, and on what content version, for staff and agents alike.

The s. 156 program also requires an appointed compliance officer, written policies and procedures kept up to date, and a documented risk assessment — and the two-year effectiveness review typically tests whether the training and agent oversight described on paper actually happened.

The phrase "list of employees authorized to order transactions" comes from PCMLTFR s. 37, which applies when an MSB enters into a service agreement with an entity — an ongoing client relationship, not agent engagement. The record set includes the name, address, date of birth and occupation of the person who signed the agreement, an information record on the entity, an extract of the corporate documents showing power to bind, and the list of the client entity's employees who are authorized to order transactions under the agreement.

For your own staff, the regulations prescribe no standalone authorized-employee register. Who may approve or order what internally is set through your written policies and procedures under s. 156(1)(b). Many MSBs still maintain an internal authorization matrix and keep it current as roles change — useful examination evidence, even though the form is yours to choose.

Retention for agent criminal-record documents is five years after they are obtained (s. 37.1). Most other records default to PCMLTFR s. 148(1)(c): five years after the day the record was created. Note the retention rule is s. 148, not s. 146 — current s. 146 is the ongoing-monitoring record requirement. Section 147 permits electronic form if a paper copy can readily be produced, and s. 148(2) relieves an individual of retention once their employment or contract ends where the records belong to the employer — relief for the person, not for the business.

Finally, s. 149 requires every record to be kept so it can be provided within 30 days of an examination request under PCMLTFA s. 62. Organizing agent files so the agreement, checks, registration entry and training log are retrievable per agent is the practical way to meet that clock.