`Money laundering to be tackled with iron hand’

Published: Thursday, 14 December, 2006, 09:38 AM Doha Time

THE GCC, committed to combating money laundering, needs to tackle the menace with iron hand as its banking system marches ahead of the peers in the developed countries in implementing Basel II norms, Doha Bank Deputy CEO R Seetharaman has said.

"It is estimated that huge amount of money estimated in trillions is laundered. This needs to be tackled with iron hand," Seetharaman told the second US-MENA conference on Anti Money Laundering and Combating Financing-GCC Perspective.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York hosted the conference in co-ordination with US Department of Treasury, Middle East & North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENA FATF), American Banker Association (ABA), Union of Arab Banks (UAB) and Arab Bankers Association of North America (ABANA).

He said money laundering and terror financing are the biggest dangers facing the world, threatening to damage global peace, harmony and stability.

Noting that while globalisation, consumerism, deregulation and technology are making the world extremely competitive and efficient, he said even the evil activities had also become equally efficient and sophisticated and hence "it is extremely important to realise this and tackle it at global scale."

GCC Banking sector has come a long way maturing into a stable financial system as it has progressed well towards implementing Basel II compliance, much more advanced stage than many developed countries, he said.

Considering GCC demography, over a period of time, various informal system of remittance came into being, providing convenience to migrant workers, he added.

A good majority of migrant workers do not have access to banking in remote locations in their home countries and this has given rise to non-banking remittance companies, which has been very useful to poor workers, he said.

Seetharaman said MENA FATF, duly recognising the regional issues had created a very good beginning by having detailed study of region specific financial transactions which were hitherto not under strict supervision.

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