BB warns banks on terror financing
The central bank yesterday instructed commercial banks to strengthen monitoring of money laundering and terror financing, a top official said.
The instruction came following the deadly Gulshan attack that killed 20 people including 17 foreigners on July 1.
“We have asked the banks to reinforce their efforts to rein in money laundering and terror financing,” said Abu Hena Mohd Razee Hassan, deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank and head of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU).
BB officials had a meeting with the chief executives and heads of anti-money laundering units of two dozen banks at its headquarters in Dhaka yesterday. Meeting with the rest of the banks will be held today. Bangladesh has 56 commercial banks.
“Banks were asked to conduct inspections frequently to identify whether there were any suspicious transactions and money laundering activities happening in their bank branches,” Hassan said.
Suspicious transaction report or STR is one of the indicators of money laundering and terror financing activities. Though banks are the prime reporting organisations of STR, other organisations such as non-bank financial institutions, insurance companies, cooperatives, capital market intermediaries and NGOs have also been brought under the reporting system.
The total number of STR submitted by the reporting agencies was 619 in fiscal 2013-14, which went up to about 700 in 2014-15. The number of STR reported to the central bank was only 175 in 2011-12.
“There are some banks that do not submit STR to us. We have asked them to send reports to us on monthly basis,” said an official of BFIU who attended the meeting.
“The central bank has asked us to deal with money laundering issues strictly as terrorist activities rose in recent times,” said the chief executive of a bank.
BB wants banks' board of directors and senior management to get involved in monitoring of money laundering and terror financing activities, he said.
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