Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Nepal-India to share information on flow of dirty money

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) Financial Information Unit (FIU) and Financial Intelligence Unit-India entered into an agreement to check the flow of dirty money between the two countries.
Central bank's FIU chief Dharma Raj Sapkota and Financial Intelligence Unit-India's Pravin Kumer Tiwari signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on behalf of their respective institutions on November 17.
The move is supposed to help at curbing the money laundering — turning the illegal money into legal — that can used in funding terrorist or in other illegal drugs and arms related trafficking.
The information on any sort of illegal money laundering and funding of terrorist activities has to be shared among the nations that have entered into an agreement through such MoUs that is supposed to help minimising the instances of such unlawful activities.
Since such money laundering activities are not confined in a single country or jurisdiction, sharing information can be of crucial importance in curbing such activities.
Nepal had entered into similar agreement with other countries like Taiwan of China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Thailand among others, so that, Nepal can exchange information of suspected dirty money flow information with eight other countries.
Signing of the agreement regarding information sharing with other countries will also enable Nepal to strengthen its position in the fight against money laundering. The Anti Money Laundering (AML) Act has already included banks and financial institutions, money changers, remittance agencies, casino, share traders, insurance agencies, land revenue office, Company Registrars’ Office, tax administration, gems and precious metals dealers, lawyers and accountants to provide information to FIU regarding any suspicious transactions or the ones exceeding Rs 1 million of their respective clients.

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