From this year, reporting entities are required to complete an annual return each year for the period from July 1 to June 30. The report has to be completed by August 30.

It asks for details of the business, including the number of transactions done each year, the gross value of transactions, details of clients and how those clients were signed up.

There are concerns that if every transaction has to be detailed, and an adviser has a lot of clients and contributions or withdrawals being made, each report could take a long time.

It has been suggested that a better option would be to monitor individual higher-risk clients rather than each transaction.

Murray Weatherston, of SiFA, confirmed there had been meetings with the FMA but said he could not say what had been discussed.

He said the AML reporting requirements could be onerous.  “Our view is that the AML risk presented by financial advisers doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as large as the officials’ perception... many of us were surprised advisers got caught in the regime at all when lawyers don’t.”

Financial advisers had earlier been given a structural risk assessment by the regulator of medium/high.

A Securities Commission document said: “They are the contact point between investment product providers and customers. They have knowledge of, and opportunity to question, a customer, when product providers, who typically have limited or no customer contact, do not.”

The FMA is believed to have been open to discussion on the requirements.

Departing IFA president Nigel Tate had previously suggested the AML reporting be tied in with other financial adviser regulatory requirements, such as licensing. but Weatherston said that was not a solution because AML reporting is done by each reporting entity, not each individual adviser.