News
New AML Legislation Puts China on Par with International Standards
By Natasha Bright
printThe Chinese government's new anti-money laundering legislation strengthens the nation's efforts to protect businesses against corruption and financial crime and seeks to put its financial institutions on par with global standards. In fact, those rules may help China fulfill its obligations under the United Nations Convention on Corruption, a multilateral treaty requiring countries to strengthen money laundering controls to fight global corruption. With the new measures in place, China also may earn full membership in the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which granted the Asian nation observer status in August. The new law and corresponding regulations, effective Jan. 1,...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
The Supreme Court nears a ruling on the long-running Arab Bank case, FATF spares Afghanistan from its blacklist, and more, in this week's news roundup.
U.S. officials will soon ask an influential intergovernmental group to call on its members to relax laws preventing bank affiliates from sharing data on suspected financial crimes, say sources.
The world's premier financial crime watchdog declined Friday to suspend Turkey's membership and disclosed how its assessors will begin evaluating jurisdictions on the efficacy with which they fight illicit finance.
The Financial Action Task Force is set to implement a two-tiered grading system for future mutual evaluations as part of an effort to better score the efficacy of anti-money laundering regimes.
An intergovernmental group's revised expectations of how countries should seize looted assets may prove difficult to meet, and could lower the mutual evaluation scores nations receive for their anti-money laundering controls.
The Financial Action Task Force threatened Friday to suspend Turkey's membership if the country fails to pass counterterrorist financing laws ahead of a Feb. 22 meeting by the group.
An intergovernmental group that evaluates how countries fight money laundering and terrorist financing will change how it grades compliance with its standards beginning next year, say individuals familiar with discussions.
The U.S. Treasury Department will issue guidance expanding on pending regulations in an effort to plug compliance gaps ahead of the Financial Action Task Force's next review of the United States.
Intergovernmental evaluations of how nations fight money laundering and terrorist financing often do not accurately reflect whether those efforts are effective, the International Monetary Fund said in a report Wednesday.
Eleven jurisdictions have yet to make "significant progress" on improving their anti-money laundering regimes despite having had six months to more than a year to do so, an intergovernmental watchdog said Monday.
Growing U.S. financial ties to the Chinese market will likely bring anti-money laundering compliance troubles along with profits, according to consultants and former government officials.
A report by an intergovernmental watchdog highlighting the anti-money laundering weaknesses of more than two dozen countries is prompting non-bank financial institutions to drop customers and avoid risky markets.
Gauging the vulnerability of money service businesses' agents to being used to launder money or finance terrorism is central to adopting a risk-based approach to compliance, according to a global watchdog report released Monday.
China's central bank fined 12 Chinese financial institutions in the first six months of 2008 for involvement with money laundering, according to a news report.
Financial institutions should search for transactions tied to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by using many of the same tactics they use to investigate money laundering and terrorist financing schemes, FATF said in guidance clarifying a United Nations Security Council rule.
The Financial Action Task Force, the global anti-money laundering watchdog, may issue a formal recommendation on standards to minimize the use of international trade to help launder money and finance terrorism, a person familiar with the organization says.
In a FATF evaluation, China was deemed fully compliant with eight of FATFs 49 recommendations on money laundering and terrorist financing and noncompliant with eight others. In separate reports, FATF called the U.K.s AML program comprehensive and said Greeces has fallen behind.
Despite Chinas acceptance into FATF, money laundering and corruption in the country may get worse before they get better as root problems remain unaddressed, AML professionals say.
FATF approved Chinas membership during its plenary meeting in Paris this week. China passed comprehensive AML laws in October 2006 to bring its system in line with international standards.
The new rules, which extend a law enacted last year, are part of China's bid to join the international Financial Action Task Force.