Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-Six more organizations including stock dealers have been brought under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) as reporting agencies, officials said.
The agencies, which are newly included, are stock dealers and stock brokers, portfolios managers and merchant bankers, securities custodian, asset managers, non-profit organizations and non-government organizations.
The central bank of Bangladesh issued a circular in this connection on Monday and asked chief executives and managing directors of the organizations including commercial banks and non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) to maintain the instructions properly.
“We’ve brought the organisations under the AMLA as reporting agencies in line with the decisions of National Coordination Committee (NCC) on Anti-money Laundering, headed by Finance Minister AMA Muhith,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said, adding that the committee has taken the latest move to upgrade the country’s Anti-money Laundering Act, 2009 to the international standard.
Currently, commercial banks, non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), insurance companies and money changers have to report to the central bank on any suspicious transaction.
Under the existing AMLA, the reporting agencies will have to inform the Anti-money Laundering Department of the central bank instantly if they detect any suspicious transaction.
The central bank will now be able to penalize the agencies anywhere between BDT 10,000 and BDT 0.5 million for failure to submit reports related to money laundering, according to the Act.
Besides, financing terrorist activities, food adulteration, environment pollution, sexual exploitation, insider trading and market manipulation and organized crimes have been treated as offences under the AMLA.
BBN/SSR/AD-05Oct10-1:46 pm (BST)
