Guidelines for NBFIs to step up fight against money laundering

The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) yesterday issued guidelines for non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing and asked them to draw up separate regulations. 

Each NBFI will have to set up a central compliance unit comprising top officials and appoint a chief anti-money laundering compliance officer, whose position will not be below three posts of the managing director.

Officials with at least seven years of experience of working either at an NBFI or a bank could be considered for the job.

Each branch of a non-bank will have to appoint a branch anti-money laundering compliance officer (BAMLCO), according to the guidelines of the BFIU, the national body dedicated to monitoring and tackling money laundering and terrorist financing in Bangladesh.

The BAMLCO will arrange a meeting with other officials of a branch every three months and monitor suspicious transactions. NBFIs will have to select clients with utmost caution.

No clients will be allowed to open accounts anonymously and NBFIs will have to collect detailed information about each customer. If a suspicious transaction is settled in any branch of an NBFI, the BAMLCO will have to inform the BFIU.

Currently, there are 35 NBFIs in Bangladesh. Of them, two are fully government-owned, one is the subsidiary of a state-run commercial bank, 19 were initiated by private domestic initiative, and 13 were initiated by joint venture initiative.