http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=110203&date=2010-08-26 

The central bank has formed a committee to prepare guidelines for combating money laundering and terror financing by the non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), officials said.

"We'll introduce a set of separate guidelines for the non-banking financial institutions aiming to strengthen monitoring in order to check money laundering and terror financing," a senior official at the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE Wednesday.

He also said the committee would prepare the guideline considering the existing acts and circulars, issued earlier, in this connection.

The committee will include money laundering risk as a core risk along with the already identified four risk factors - credit, asset and liability, internal control and compliance - for the NBFIs.

The decision was taken at a meeting held at the Bangladesh Bank Tuesday with executive director of the bank Abul Quasem in the chair.

The five-member committee, headed by joint director Anwarul Islam, and comprising officials from anti-money laundering department and the department of financial institutions and markets of the central bank, has been asked to submit their report to the authorities concerned by September this year.

The BB earlier asked the NBFIs to comply with the existing Money Laundering Prevention Act to check illegal fund transfer.

Under the Act, the financial institutions including banks, NBFIs and insurance companies will have to inform the Anti-money Laundering Department of the central bank instantly if they detect any suspicious transaction.

The Bangladesh Bank is empowered to penalise banks and NBFIs with fines anywhere between Tk 10,000 and Tk 0.5 million for failure to submit reports related to money laundering.