Overview

Firms must comply with both the Bank Secrecy Act and financial compliance regulations ("Anti-Money Laundering rules"). The purpose of the AML rules is to help detect and report suspicious activities including the predicate offenses to money laundering and terrorist financing, such as securities fraud and market manipulation. Recent fraud transaction has included basic but sophisticated mirror transaction and as such, it is a responsibility to monitor and report such activities to the financial authority. FATF Recommendations are recognized as the global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) standard. The Recommendations were first drafted in the 1990 and were revised several times including with major changes introduced in 2001, 2003 and 2012. As each country has different legal, administrative, operational and financial system, the FATF Recommendations shall be individually adapted to fit one’s own circumstances. FATF has in the past issued statements pertaining to strategic deficiencies in AML/CFT regimes and as such, both financial and non-financial institutions are advised to take appropriate actions and measures to address and to revise their AML/CFT regimes accordingly to the latest FATF recommendations.

In its 2015 Mutual Evaluation Report of Malaysia, the FATF noted of the following points for improvement: “Malaysia’s understanding of risk is sound, although improvements are needed in the assessment of Terrorist Financing (TF) risk to include more details for the private sector, and to deepen the assessment of Money Laundering (ML) risks from foreign sourced threats. Improvements are needed to ensure financial intelligence is used to target investigations for at least all the high-risk crime types. Malaysia is not effectively targeting its high-risk offences (other than fraud) or foreign sourced threats in its prosecution of ML as most cases relate to low-medium level offence as it tends to pursue criminal justice measures rather than ML prosecutions”.

“Malaysia Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) also tends to use security intelligence approach to terrorism prevention rather than the financial intelligence and criminal prosecution approach against the terrorism financiers although it has some successes using other criminal justice and administrative measures to disrupt TF risks. Malaysia’s legal framework for supervision is sound with most work carried out by RIs (Reporting Institutions) which are supervised by BNM (Bank Negara Malaysia). There is a gap however in BNM FIED’s (Financial Intelligence and Enforcement Department) available resources to supervise the large DNFBPs population. For RIs, there is a need to transition from rules based to risk based approach and RIs do not always implement CDD requirements on a risk-sensitive basis and more need to be done to focus on transnational crime and foreign risks.”

Therefore, there are inherent vulnerabilities in regards to ML and TF risks as Malaysia is exposed to international trade and flow of capitals. This is real as Malaysia is also situated in a region with high risk of radical activities. In this workshop, delegates will have deeper understanding of the risks and practices and to discuss and learn on improving national standards as per the latest FATF recommendations in order to eliminate or minimize ML and TF risks.

Who Should Attend

Principals especially those working in the Financial Industry including both the public sector (financial regulators and supervisors such as monetary authority and financial intelligence units) and private sector (such as Banking, Insurance, Securities, Trusts and Service Providers) are encouraged and shall benefit by attending this course.

A list of POTENTIAL ATTENDEES, but not exhaustive, is laid out below as follow:

• Financial Transaction Regulators / Supervisors
• Financial Intelligence Managers/Analysts
• Policy Makers
• Financial Institution Directors
• Financial Institution (Senior) Vice Presidents
• AML/CFT Policy Analyst
• AML/CFT Compliance Analyst
• Compliance Managers
• Compliance Auditors
• DD Managers
• KYC Analyst
• Relationship Managers
• Risk Managers
• Private Equity Professionals
• Legal Managers/Supervisors
• Financial Lawyers

Key Learning Objectives

• LEARN the latest developments in the industry regarding financial compliance
• Be AWARE of the implications arising from FATF Recommendations
• UNDERSTAND that ML/FT crimes evolve along with advances in Information Technology
• ACQUIRE practical yet effective strategies for conducting KYC and CDD to counter the ever- sophisticated ML/FT typologies
• STRENGTHEN compliance oversight on AML/CFT policies and coordination
• MITIGATE money laundering and terrorist financing risks based on risk- based approach (RBA)
• ENSURE that the AML/CFT regime is adequate to address such risks
• NETWORK with fellow delegates (from both public and private sector) from similar background and build contacts