Hong Kong's securities regulator will include persons entrusted with a prominent function by an international organization as "politically exposed persons," or PEPs, under its revised anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing guidelines.

The Securities and Futures Commission said Oct. 12 that the enhanced scrutiny for foreign PEPs will be extended to domestic PEPs and international organization PEPs where their business relationships with a firm are assessed to be of high risk.

The changes will also allow firms the flexibility to adopt reasonable risk-based measures to verify customer identification information, the commission added.

The revised guidelines will take effect Nov. 1.