Financial institutions in Hong Kong and Singapore need to review and monitor their anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) procedures and policies regularly to prevent abuses by politically exposed persons (PEPs), said industry officials. Their comments followed recent reports that banks in the two cities may have been used to launder millions of dollars for Nambar Enkhbayar, Mongolia’s former president.
“This is a timely reminder for institutions to ensure that they have robust systems and procedures in place regarding client acceptance, on-going monitoring of … accounts and timely reporting of suspicious or unusual transactions to the authorities,” said Christopher Wilson, a partner with Deloitte in Hong Kong. He told Thomson Reuters that the Hong Kong institutions involved may have breached the territory’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Financial Institutions) Ordinance (AMLO), which became effective on April 1, 2012, as well as the 1994 Organised and Serious Crime Ordinance (OSCO), with regard to reporting of suspicious transactions.
Former Mongolian President Enkhbayar was imprisoned last month in Ulan Bator, after having been under investigation by Mongolia’s six-year-old anti-graft body, the Independent Authority Against Corruption (IAAC). The IAAC has claimed that some of Hong Kong and Singapore’s biggest banks were used for money laundering by a syndicate connected to Enkhbayar. The IAAC alleges that shell companies and bank accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore have been used by some wealthy Mongolians, including Enkhbayar, to transfer funds illegally out of the country.
Detailed news link: click here