April 21, 2017
Japan’s financial regulator has stepped up scrutiny of banks on their measures against money laundering and terror funding, ahead of checks by a global body for fighting illicit finance, several people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The Financial Services Agency (FSA) sees as patchy Japanese banks’ measures for fighting criminal abuse of the financial system and is increasingly concerned that without an appropriate response international trust in the system could be shaken, they said. The FSA is surveying the banks and will pull together results this summer, and then seek an industry-wide bolstering of standards before the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) evaluates Japan’s overall performance in 2019.