He affirmed the state’s commitment to implementing FATF standards to preserve the safety and security of its financial system

The Central Bank stresses the importance of the role of compliance departments in facing financial crimes

Abdul Hamid Saeed: "We stress to continue exerting more efforts to combat money laundering and combat terrorist financing."

The Central Bank held the first “compliance officials meeting”, chaired by the bank’s governor, Abdul Hamid Saeed, who emphasized the importance of compliance departments to confront financial crimes, and their role in ensuring the proper and comprehensive management of all risks faced by banks in the country, in addition to proactive management and reporting of compliance risks.

During the meeting, which was attended by 100 participants from senior compliance officials in the banking sector, in addition to the President of the Emirates Banks Federation, Abdulaziz Al Ghurair, Saeed said, “The UAE is fully committed to implementing the Financial Action Group (FATF) standards to maintain the safety and security of its financial system. "We stress that financial institutions continue to make more efforts to confront money laundering and combat the financing of terrorism, and we encourage continued communication to discuss regulatory matters with the sector."

The meeting aims to create a platform between the Central Bank and senior compliance officials in all banks operating in the country, including the Federation of Emirates Banks, to discuss the tasks and responsibilities expected from the compliance departments, and the extent of their integration with bank risk management, as this comes in support of achieving the UAE's agenda in relation to Facing money laundering and combating terrorist financing

The meeting dealt with several topics, the most important of which is assessing the skills of compliance departments, and properly integrating compliance risks into the overall risk-tolerance framework.

The Central Bank presented the agenda for the tasks of the Supervision Department of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism, whose responsibility in particular is to comply with the procedures recommended by the Financial Action Task Force.

In addition, the National Committee for Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of Illegal Organizations held its first meeting for the year 2021, chaired by the Governor of the Central Bank, Abdul Hamid Saeed, to discuss the latest developments and decisions regarding countering money laundering and combating terrorist financing.

The meeting reviewed Cabinet Resolution No. 10 of 2021 regarding the establishment of the Executive Office to counter money laundering and combat terrorist financing, and the coordination mechanism between the National Committee and the Executive Office was clarified.

He also discussed the remarkable progress that has been achieved in implementing the action plan of the National Committee for Combating Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism, in addition to adopting the restructuring of specialized sub-committees in several areas, headed by several vital bodies, working to reduce money laundering crimes, terrorist financing and financing illegal organizations.

Abdul Hamid Saeed said: “We are keen to meet periodically with the concerned authorities to review the work plan of the National Committee to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing.

We are keen to adopt all recommendations aimed at protecting our financial system.

The reconfiguration of the committees comes with the aim of laying down regulations and decisions that would enhance coordination between all concerned authorities in the state, and raise performance in reducing financial crimes.

Among the most prominent topics that were raised was a working paper on public-private partnership, to provide the private sector with supervisory guidelines regarding the application of anti-money laundering and combating terrorist financing requirements, in addition to the private sector’s sharing of information about trends, patterns, behavior and threats, which is an important matter for the sector. In order to enable them to activate or amend their surveillance systems to reduce financial crimes.

Follow our latest local and sports news, and the latest political and economic developments via Google news