Amendments have been made to the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan  On the Prevention of the Legalization of Criminally Obtained Funds or Other Property and the Financing of Terrorism (hereinafter: the Law) on 19 July 2018. According to the amendments, the control body has been identified for pawnshops and persons providing intermediary services on the buying and selling of real estate. The supervisory authority for these groups is Financial Monitoring Service.

Under the law, pawnshops are part of a monitoring group, and persons providing intermediary services on the buying and selling of real estate are included in the group of other persons involved in monitoring. It should be noted that, the law requires persons providing intermediary services on the buying and selling of real estate to carry out a number of transactions within the framework of control measures when dealing with real estate purchase or sale. At the same time, pawnshops should provide information about customers that they carry out occasional transactions and about beneficial owners within the scope of identification and verification measures. Identification measures shall be carried out with ID document, if the customer or beneficial owner is natural person, and with ID document and TIN card, if the customer or beneficial owner is a natural person engaged in the entrepreneurship activity without forming a legal person, and if the customer or beneficial owner is a legal entity, with notarized copy of the charter and state registration certificate. Verification is done by checking the submitted information. Also, monitoring participants and other persons involved in monitoring should ensure that the identification information and transaction information relating to clients and beneficial owners are protected during the period specified by the legislation, and submit the information to the Financial Monitoring Service about type, date, amount of transactions with customers, and should comply with other requirements of the Law.

According to the Code of Administrative Offenses of Azerbaijan, officials are fined in the amount of 800 to 1,500 manats, and legal entities - from 8,000 to 15,000 manats for failure to comply with the requirements of the  Law.