Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)– The HSBC Bangladesh does not have any information on illicit fund transfer to one of its Swiss branches, as reported in national and international media recently.
Senior officials of the HSBC Bangladesh disclosed this at a meeting with senior officials of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) held at the central bank headquarters in the capital Dhaka on Thursday with BB Executive Director M Mahfuzur Rahman in the chair.
“The HSBC officials informed us that they do not have any information in this connection,” Mr Rahman told BBN in Dhaka, adding that the central bank will investigate the issue.
“The central bank will send investigation team to the HSBC office within the next week,” he noted.
At least 16 Bangladeshis’ links with a Swiss subsidiary of the HSBC, a multinational British bank, have been detected in a global report known as Swiss Leaks.
The BB executive official said the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) of the central bank will send a letter to its counterpart of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) seeking information about these account holders shortly.
Bangladesh, as a member of the Egmont Group, a forum of the Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) of different countries, is now empowered to exchange information on money laundering and terror financing among its member-countries.
The Group has now 147 members across the world to promote and enhance international cooperation in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing and to foster implementation of domestic programmes in this field.
The global report, prepared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), covers over 100 thousand HSBC customers and their bank accounts with total balances standing at over $100 billion.
Although there were 31 bank accounts opened, about 31 per cent had Bangladeshi passports implying direct Bangladesh connections.
The rest were indirectly linked through offshore companies, according to the report.
BBN/SSR/AD-13Feb15-10:47 am (BST)
