The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has directed stock exchanges and financial companies to embrace anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing measures proposed by the multi-national Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Through a circular issued August 30 to the Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad stock exchanges, National Commodity Exchange Limited and the National Clearing Company, the SECP said all listed companies should abide by the FATF’s instructions for fighting money laundering and terror financing. The instructions were not made available to the public.
The circular also discloses that the FATF had not received a commitment yet from the Iranian and South Korean governments to eliminate the possibility of misuse of their financial firms by unscrupulous elements.
The FATF has identified certain jurisdictions in which financial institutions need to apply measures against money laundering and terror funding and consider the risk associated with not complying, the SECP advised.
“On the advice of the SECP and the State Bank of Pakistan, we often verify the credentials of our customers to ensure that Al-Qaida or the Taliban could not use our banks for financial transactions,” Sirajuddin Aziz, CEO of the Bank Alfalah Limited, told Central Asia Online.
Pakistani banks have tough criteria to open accounts
The banks say they adopt tough criteria for opening the account of a charity organisation, a company or an individual.
“We don’t open a new bank account until we know that the customer is a genuine person and a taxpayer and that money laundering and terror financing are not his or her source of income,” said Mukhtar Ahmed, manager of the NIB Bank, West Wharf, Karachi.
The bank requires the depositor to sign a new account opening form, designed by the SECP and State Bank of Pakistan to provide maximum disclosure about the depositor, he said.
“The SECP directed more than 600 companies being traded on the stock markets to take further measures to eradicate the possibility of money laundering and terror financing through Pakistani financial companies,” Ahmed Nabil, COO of the JOVC financial services firm, told Central Asia Online August 31.
The SECP and FATF have asked Pakistani companies not to deal with dubious international companies that support money laundering and terror financing.
“We are monitoring our records on our clients and getting the National Tax Numbers (NTNs) and Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) to make sure that they are not involved,” Nabil said.
Pakistani business leaders vow to monitor suspicious practises
The CEOs and COOs of the Pakistani companies are also submitting affidavits to the SECP in which they vow to enhance monitoring and take additional measures to stamp out the targeted practises.
The SECP said it would take strict action against financial firms that did not patch the loopholes in their operations.
Pakistani banks, investment companies, leasing entities, stock brokerages and currency exchange companies already have adopted a number of measures, Nabil told Central Asia Online August 31.
However, the financial companies in Pakistan will have to enforce more measures suggested by the FATF, he said.
Nabil pointed out Pakistan had witnessed a substantial jump in the inflow of remittances in the last few years, mainly because enforcement of anti-money-laundering measures encouraged overseas Pakistanis and investors to use banking channels rather than the hawala (or hundi) informal cash transfer system that existed for decades.
The annual total soared from US $2 billion before 2001 to over US $8.5 billion in 2009-2010, he said.
Source: Central Asia Online
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