Banking secrecy under trial

Banking secrecy under trial

Big businesspeople and key government officials with money
kept in local banks are, at present, gripped by feelings of
discomfort. The problem is, a private national bank has been
accused of leaking accounts in the name of Attorney General Andi
Ghalib and his wife.

Irrespective of whether this accusation is true, this case
makes a bad precedent in our national banking business since it
will cause other account holders to hesitate to keep their money
in a domestic bank. They will, instead, be tempted to look to
foreign banks as an alternative that they might consider to be
safer.

It is the duty of Bank Indonesia as supervisor and custodian
of the banking business in this country to investigate the matter
thoroughly and then make the findings public so that charges of
leaking can be proven.

We support the government's efforts to continue to enforce the
existing regulations that commit banks to protect the
confidentiality of their clients' accounts. However, it would be
advisable that a law on money laundering be put into effect to
help uncover cases of high-level corruption. Banks, after all,
are financial institutions that are vulnerable to illicit
transactions on both domestic and international scales.

-- Bisnis Indonesia, Jakarta