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China Gains Stamp of Approval for AML Efforts with Admission to FATF
By Matt Squire
printWith its admission to the Financial Action Task Force, China won a significant endorsement of its anti-money laundering efforts, but the nation must take further steps to improve the transparency of its financial system, international banking observers say. FATF approved China's membership during its plenary meeting in Paris this week, bringing the membership of the organization that sets international anti-money laundering (AML) policy to 34. China passed comprehensive AML laws in October 2006 to bring its system in line with FATF standards. The laws, which went into effect in January, require Chinese institutions to develop money laundering controls and customer...
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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.
An agreement by one the nation's largest money transmitters to better share transactional data with investigators has resulted in greater scrutiny, both for the business and its chief competitor.
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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.
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.
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.
Macau is today not only one of the most active gambling centers in the world, but also one of the most vulnerable to money laundering, say compliance experts.
In its 18th annual report, the organization that sets global anti-money laundering standards noted its accomplishments in the past year and identified new objectives.
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.
The new rules, which extend a law enacted last year, are part of China's bid to join the international Financial Action Task Force.
The new law and corresponding regulations compel the nation's financial institutions to develop comprehensive anti-money laundering (AML) programs, with customer identification procedures, recordkeeping rules and suspicious and large transaction reporting requirements.