Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) yesterday issued guidelines for banks to prevent money laundering in the name of export and import.

The intelligence agency has been forced to issue the guideline promptly following a Global Financial Integrity report, which said Bangladesh is one of the top countries facing the trade based money laundering.       

As per the guidelines, all the banks will have to prepare own guidelines to prevent money laundering and submit those to the BFIU within March 10 of 2020.

Along with that, they will have to implement the guidelines within the first of June of the same year.                 

According to the guideline, trade-based money laundering related cases would be analysed with top priority.

To trace and analyse money laundering, a special committee has been formed which would be led by a deputy general manager.

If any suspicious transaction is found, the committee would take initiative to visit the corresponding bank after analysing the relevant export and import data.

The committee will work on tracing possible sectors and ways of trade-based money laundering.

It will also help banks to improve their capability to follow guidelines of trade-based money laundering. According to the guideline, all the international trade related bank officials would be trained.  

The BFIU emphasised issuing the guidelines because over 80 percent of money laundering was committed through international trade.