The central bank has directed insurance and securities
institutions to set up an anti-money laundering mechanism this
year, and is likely to ask some non-financial sectors to do the
same.
"We need the insurance and securities sectors to set up an
(internal) arm and devise rules against money laundering this
year," Tang Xu, head of the anti-money laundering department of the
People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, said
during a live Internet conference yesterday.
This is PBOC's latest move to intensify its fight against money
laundering. Earlier, it ordered the banking industry to devise a
system to monitor and report dubious money flow.
Some specific non-financial institutions such as law and
accounting firms and auction houses are the others that could be
directed to set up similar mechanisms, Tang said.
"We will study these sectors one by one and map out reporting
and inspection regimes for dubious transactions."
Securities and insurance companies will have to send data on
dubious deals to the anti-money laundering monitoring center of the
central bank from October 1, he said.
China intensified efforts to improve its anti-money laundering
regime by passing an anti-money laundering law late last year and
issuing rules on checking the possible flow of funds for terrorists
last month.
It has joined hands with the Ministry of Public Security to set
up a network to check the identity of banks' customers. The system
went into force in late June, and all the country's banks have
joined it, PBOC deputy governor Su Ning told a press briefing
yesterday.
If a bank official wants to check a customer's identity he just
needs to click a few times for the computerized image of his ID to
pop up on the screen, the PBOC official said.
(China Daily July 27, 2007)
