Arab states doing well in combating money-laundering

Most Arab countries have made considerable strides in the past few years in combating money-laundering, according to the Chairman of US-Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Private Sector Dialogue.

"Arab countries have come a long way in the last five or seven years in terms of regulations in the private banking sector. Banks have put a lot of controls in place to safeguard against money launderers and offenders and have also invested a lot of money, technology and human resources for that," Muhammad Baasiri (pictured) told reporters here yesterday.

He said that the Arab world is not lagging behind in terms of new technologies and regulators have to keep pace, the first vehicle being for countries to be politically committed to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

There is a great interest and keenness in having all the defense mechanisms in place against money launderers in this part of the world, said Baasiri who is also Secretary of Special Investigation Commission Fighting Money Laundering at Banque du Liban.

He is here taking part in the MENA Financial Regulators' Training Initiative's 5th Consultative Group meeting.

He said the objectives of MENA Financial Regulators' Initiative is to raise awareness among Arab banking supervisors on bank supervision and to give them a chance to learn about the latest techniques in the field.

"We bring US style training courses and trainers to this part of the world and we also hold seminars in different parts of the Arab world," Baasiri said.

Baasiri pointed out that the main issue is for supervisors to be aware of the kind of risks involved in doing banking and finding ways to mitigate and manage these risks.

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