Private Enterprise and Financial Institutions Shoulder Burden of Anti-Money Laundering Efforts
New Approach to Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Proliferation Financing
In a significant shift in strategy, the government has announced that private enterprise and financial institutions will now share the responsibility for detecting money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. This move comes after recent international experience has shown that leaving detection solely to financial institutions is ineffective and haphazard.
Why the Change?
Financial institutions have been found to be unable to detect and report money laundering activities effectively, often diverting attention away from larger-scale schemes towards smaller, more obvious forms of laundering. Moreover, financial institutions have borne the brunt of the costs associated with anti-money laundering efforts, including resource expenditures on detection and reporting, as well as lost profits due to the need to turn away profitable business to prevent laundering.
How Will it Work?
To address these issues, agencies of the Money Laundering Prevention Task Force will:
- Train staff to understand money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing
- Provide assistance to entities they regulate or engage with to detect ML/TF/PF
- Proactively search their own data holdings for indicators of these offenses
Enhancing Deterrence
To enhance deterrence, the government has decided to focus on facilitating the change of behavior among those who launder proceeds from multiple predicate offenses. This approach is considered more effective than targeting individual predicate offenders or would-be offenders.
Importance of Cooperation
The government has emphasized the importance of cooperation among agencies with different powers, information, and skills in the fight against profit-driven crime such as drug supply, corruption, fraud, and tax evasion.
Streamlining Anti-Money Laundering Efforts
To streamline anti-money laundering efforts, the government will:
- Conduct regular testing of its AML/CTF systems
- Put corrective actions in place to correct identified deficiencies
- Document the results of follow-up testing
Glossary of Terms
Here is a list of acronyms used in this article:
- AML: Anti-Money Laundering
- CPF: Counter Proliferation Financing
- CTF: Counter Terrorist Financing
- FATF: Financial Action Task Force
- MLPA: Money Laundering Prevention Authority
- ML: Money Laundering
- NRA: National Risk Assessment 2014
- PF: Proliferation Financing
- SFIU: Samoa Financial Intelligence Unit
- STR: Suspicious Transaction Report
- TF: Terrorist Financing
Source: [Name of publication], [Date]