AMLC firms up ties with regional peers vs laundering

The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) will work closely with its foreign counterparts to be able to better combat terrorist financing and money laundering, the head of the country’s main financial intelligence unit said.

AMLC chair and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said the fifth Counter-Terrorism Financing Summit that began on Tuesday in Manila brought together leaders in financial intelligence along with senior representatives from regulatory, national security, law enforcement, industry and academia from across the region and the world.

“Fighting terrorism means teamwork among local and international stakeholders,” Diokno said. “It is through avenues of sharing and potential collaboration across all sectors concerned that we are able to synergize our efforts and, ultimately, rethink our strategies in beating terrorists and their financiers at their own game.”

Hosted by AMLC in partnership with the summit’s co-founders, the Indonesian financial intelligence unit (PPATK) and Australia’s financial intelligence agency (Austrac), the conference aims to identify and share counter-terrorism financing strategies between countries in the region; address regional high-risk money laundering threats; provide operational guidance to counterparts and private sector on digital currencies and virtual assets,; and present the outcomes from the pilot of secure information sharing platform to allow real-time intelligence sharing and collaboration between regional financial intelligence bodies.

Diokno said the summit would also expand its scope beyond countering terrorist financing and consider ways to address significant regional threats such as the abuse of new financial technologies, corruption in the region as well as victim-based crimes such as human and wildlife trafficking and child sex exploitation.

The AMLC chief also noted that the summit’s discourse has gone beyond its name to include money laundering and other offenses as the terrain of financial crime grows.

Austrac CEO Nicole Rose said the CTF Summit had evolved into a globally recognized example of multilateral cooperation focused on terrorist financing and serious transnational crime.

“Terrorist and organized crime groups are increasingly sophisticated international organizations and it is essential that we unite as a region to combat these threats together,” Rose said. “The summit continues to facilitate important regional initiatives and cooperation and trust between financial intelligence units in the region has never been stronger.”

PPATK head Kiagus Ahmad Badaruddin highlighted the summit’s role as a forum that facilitates new ideas and firm commitments to collaboratively address money laundering and terrorist financing in the region.