More focus in tackling money laundering – NVB news release

To make preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing more effective, banks, Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and investigative agencies must better coordinate their priorities and efforts. That is why banks, Police, Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) and FIU have identified financial crime risks. Together, they created a detailed overview of banks’ exposure to various threats. These include such criminal phenomena as the drug economy, sanctions avoidance, trade-based money laundering and underground banking. This collaboration resulted in a Threat Assessment (Threat Assessment) that helps banks recognize threats.

Twenty threats were analyzed in detail. For banks, therefore, the Threat Assessment contains valuable information to better target their efforts to current threats. At the same time, the Threat Assessment also shows where the risks to banks are not identifiable and thus other measures need to be taken. It is obvious that banks have more visibility into, for example, evading sanctions and concealing the ultimate stakeholder than underground banking. So as not to make criminals any wiser than they are, these analyses remain available only to banks, FIU and investigative agencies.

The Dutch Banking Association (NVB) notes that public support for money laundering controls by banks is under pressure because bona fide customers are also too often inconvenienced by customer investigations by banks. According to NVB anti-money laundering coordinator Helène Erftemeijer, banks, investigative services and the Public Prosecution Service must therefore work more closely together: ‘If public parties can tell us who the crooks are and how they operate, we can search in a much more focused way and we don’t have to bother customers as much. With this Threat Assessment we are taking an important first step.’ More where necessary and less where possible through joint focus.

If you would like to have a say on this topic and help VCO members in the fight against money laundering, sign up for the Expert Group FEC! To do so, please send an email to info@vco.nl.

Source: www.nvb.nl