Anti-money laundering nets in financial market players
The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) in conjunction with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) on Tuesday trained insurance and capital market players on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorist activities.
Speaking during the opening of the training workshop which was held at Protea Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre, RBM director of microfinance and capital market supervision, Patrick Mhango, said it was necessary to bring in insurance and capital market players into the fold, to completely seal off against terrorism financing and money laundering.
Said Mhango: “Effective October 26 2012, insurance companies, brokers and agents have been included as reporting institutions under the Money Laundering, Proceeds of Serious Crimes and Terrorist Financing Act along with other financial institutions which started reporting in 2007. The omission of insurance entities as reporting entities was an anomaly.
“Malawi will soon be concluding a national risk assessment exercise which was facilitated by the World Bank and coordinated by the FIU. The exercise has thus analysed the main sources and drivers of money laundering and terrorist financing risks in order to develop effective policies and risk based regulations. Both insurance and capital market players are potentially at risk of being abused by money launderers and terrorist financiers. It is therefore very critical for both sectors to be aware of the aware of the expected money laundering and terrorist financing threats.
“In order to compliment the efforts in anti-money laundering both insurance and capital market players are therefore expected to develop policies to foil money laundering and terrorist financing activities.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the workshop, Nico Life Insurance Company Limited chief executive officer Osman Karim commended the move to include the insurance and capital market entities because they are a potential entry for money laundering activities.
“As an industry we already had systems in place to deter the use of our products for money laundering. But of course, now that we have been brought into the net we will be able to share information with relevant authorities to combat money laundering.
“To date we have not come across any money laundering activities but that should not stop us from improving our policies because as you will appreciate that people that engaged in money laundering are perfecting their techniques,” said Osman.
