According to Article 16 of the AML-CFT Law and Article 24 of the AML-CFT Decision, LFIs must maintain detailed records associated with their ML/FT risk assessment and mitigation measures as well as records, documents, data and statistics for all financial transactions, all records obtained through CDD measures for both the originators and the beneficiaries, account files and business correspondence, copies of personal identification documents, including STRs/SARs and results of any analysis performed. LFIs must maintain the records in an organized manner so as to permit data analysis and the tracking of financial transactions.

Records should be sufficient to permit reconstruction of individual transactions so as to provide, if necessary, evidence for prosecution of criminal activity. LFIs must make the records available to the competent authorities immediately upon request.

The statutory retention period for all records is at least five (5) years, from the date of completion of the transaction or termination of the business relationship with the customer, or from the date of completion of the inspection by the CBUAE, or from the date of issuance of a final judgment of the competent judicial authorities, or liquidation, dissolution, or other form of termination of a legal person or arrangement, all depending on the circumstances.