Jun.14, 2010

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved new rules to combat money laundering and terrorist funding.

According to a report from the apex bank, every financial institution is directed to formulate and implement internal controls and procedures to deter criminals from using its facilities for money laundering and terrorist financing.

In a report on its website, the CBN said "each financial institution is required to designate, Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Chief Compliance Officer with relevant competence, authority and independence to implement the new programme". It gave the duties of the compliance officers to include developing AML/CFT compliance programme, receiving and vetting suspicious transactions from staff, filling suspicious transactions report to the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and ensuring that the financial institution’s compliance programme is implemented.

Each financial institution is required to state that it will comply promptly with all the requests made in pursuant with the law and provide information to the CBN, Nigerian Fraud Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and other relevant government agencies.

In addition, each financial institution’s procedures for responding to authorised request for information on money laundering and terrorist financing, are required to meet the following: searching immediately the institution’s record, to determine whether it maintains, any account for or has engaged in any transaction with each individual, entity or organisation named in the request-reporting promptly to the requesting authority, the outcome of the search and protecting the security and confidentiality of such requests.

The CBN warned that financial institutions were not permitted to keep anonymous accounts and that financial institutions’ secrecy and confidentiality shall not be used to inhibit the implementation of the requirement in this regulation.

It added that financial institutions are required to undertake customer due diligence measures when business relations are established and while carrying out transactions above the applicable designated threshold of $1,000 or its equivalent as may be determined by the apex bank from time to time.