Sri Lanka: Request for AML Software

By Jithendra Antonio

Sri Lanka Bankers Association (Guarantee) Limited (SLBA) has recently called for Request For Proposals (RFP) to implement an Anti Money Laundering (AML) Software in member institutions. “Our main objective is to prevent anti money laundering activities and anti terrorist financing programmes” said Secretary General, SLBA Upali De Silva speaking to the Daily Financial Times.

He stressed that adoption on Anti Money Laundering technologies has become a global phenomenon as financial institutions around the world increasingly see the need to comply with regulatory measures on anti money laundering and anti terrorist financing programmes. He also said that the relevant legislation has already been passed and the Financial Intelligent Unit (FIU), a division of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), is charged with the administration of the provisions of relevant Parliament Acts. The Sri Lankan Bankers Association (SLBA) will coordinate implementation of AML Software among the member institutions as a facilitator” he said. Sri Lanka Bankers Association is a Guarantee company representing the interests of the Licensed Commercial Banks and larger Licensed Specialised Banks in Sri Lanka.

Secretary General SLBA Upali De Silva said that banks are required to submit any suspicious transaction that takes place in customer accounts and any nature of a large change in the financial accounts status of their customers to Central Bank, under the regulations. “If banks do not comply with these regulations and if they don’t query on such issues from relevant customers when the banks are questioned by Central Bank, even the Chief Executive Officer of the bank could end up in jail” Mr. De Silva added.“SLBA invites proposals from reputed experienced and eligible software service providers for the supply and implementation of an uniform software solution for banks to monitor, investigate and report transactions of a suspicious nature to the Financial Intelligence Unit at CBSL on priority basis, online” said Mr. De Silva. At the moment each and every bank operating in the country is required to submit details to Central Bank via in the form of data stored in compact disks on any nature of transactions that take place which exceed Rs.1 million in value. “This value was earlier Rs.500,000 and six months ago it was changed to Rs.1million since there are large number of transactions that take place in banks at the range of Rs.500,000 to Rs.1million.” explained Mr. De Silva.

According to SLBA the proposed software solution should contain modules on Know Your Customer Concepts, Transactions Monitoring, Entity Resolution, Compliance Reporting and Investigation Tools in order to enable banks to confirm to the requirements of Prevention of Money Laundering Act No. 5 of 2006, Convention on the Suppression of Terrorist Financing Act No. 25 of 2005, Financial Transaction Reporting Act No. 6 of 2006 and Minimum Standard Rules issued by the FIU in May 2007. “The overall cost of the AML Software implementation will be distributed among banks upon each and every bank’s volume of business after selecting a particular vendor” said Upali De Silva highlighting that after the system implementation the banks will be able to update relevant customer transaction informations online via a secure online environmental platform.

Interested parties could request for RFP document after making a non-refundable deposit of Rs. 50,000 by way of bank draft drawn on a bank in Colombo favouring SLBA (Guarantee) Limited from Monday April 27th 2009 4 pm to Monday May 11th 2009 either electronically via slab@sltnet.lk or by personal application or by post addressed to Secretary General of SLBA (Guarantee) Limited, Ceylinco House, 8th floor ,No: 69, Janadhipathi Mawatha, Colombo 01.

Source: Daily Mirror