SBP calls for capacity building to curb money laundering

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has urged banks to enhance their capacity-building to cope with the emerging challenges related to trade-based money laundering, a statement said on Tuesday.

Syed Irfan Ali, executive director, banking policy and regulations group at the SBP, said the banking industry needs to adopt best practices prevailing across the world to contain money laundering through trade instruments.

He was delivering a keynote address at a seminar organised by the Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan, in collaboration with the SBP. The purpose of this seminar was to allow senior bankers get an insight on the latest techniques being used to undertake trade-based money laundering and global best practices to prevent such illicit funds from entering the financial sector.

The event was part of the Standard Chartered’s global initiative under the umbrella of correspondent banking academy aimed at imparting global expertise in the field of financial crime to the local market.

It was primarily focused around the emerging risks of money laundering within international trade and sharing global best practices in the sphere of trade-based anti-money laundering, the statement said.

Shazad Dada, chief executive officer at Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan, said that trade-based money laundering is not a new phenomenon. “However, with the ever-increasing growth in the global trade volumes and complexity of cross-border transactions, it has become increasingly important that the banks remain more vigilant and apply advanced techniques aided by technological advancements to meet financial crime compliance standards set in place by the regulators globally,” said Dada.

Further elaborating on the initiative, Carmel Speers, regional head of financial crime compliance for Standard Chartered, said that to manage the risks associated with the financial crime, most of the banking industry has resorted to de-risking, which includes exits from some countries and clients. However, Standard Chartered is taking a different approach on de-risking.