House vows quick deliberation of new money-laundering law
House vows quick deliberation of new money-laundering law
Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Financial Transaction and Report Analysis Center (PPATK)
has obtained crucial support from House of Representative leaders
to urgently amend the money laundering law, according to its
chairman Yunus Husein.
Although the drafting of the amendment is still underway,
Yunus said after a meeting with the top lawmakers that their
support was needed to avoid delays in the deliberation process.
"They have agreed to put it on their priority list when the
President submits the (amendment) draft," Yunus said on Thursday.
The meeting was held at the request of PPATK, a body in charge
of analyzing and investigating questionable financial
transactions, which has asked for a revision of the existing
money laundering law. Representing the House in the meeting were
deputy speaker Tosari Widjaja, and Max Moein, chairman of House
Commission IX for financial affairs which will be in charge in
the deliberation.
The revision is needed if the country wants to be removed from
a list of states billed as noncooperative in the global fight
against money laundering and avoid sanctions from developed
nations.
Failure to do so would mean the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF), an international grouping of anti-money laundering
bodies, may employ measures that would adversely affect the
domestic banking industry, Yunus explained.
Measures include; a warning for multinational corporations to
stay away from doing business in the blacklisted country; and
forcing overseas banks to collect detailed data before conducting
transactions with individuals or firms in the country.
Yunus expected that the House could endorse the revision on
the law before October.
FATF, which works under the auspices of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is scheduled to
convene in June and October, to review which countries can be
excluded from the black list.
"I think, with the commitment showed by the House today, we
can make it before October so that we can be lifted from the list
in October," he added.
Indonesia is included in FATF's list despite having enacted
the money laundering law last year as the FATF has demanded that
some clauses be revised as they are deemed as uncommon by
international standards.
There are at least three clauses that need to be revised and
are included in the proposed revision. First, banks must report
suspicious transactions within three days, as compared to 14 days
under the existing law.
The second is the categorization of suspicious transactions.
The proposed draft would revoke an existing clause requiring
banks or financial institutions to report to the authorities if
they find suspicious transactions to the value of Rp 500 million
or more. Under the revision, all dubious transactions must be
reported.
Thirdly, there would also be a clause banning banks or other
financial institutions from passing on information about the
reported transactions to other parties, attached with fines and
sanctions for those who violates that.
Money laundering is defined as the practice of converting
money generated from corruption, bribery, smuggling, banking-
related crimes, drug-related crimes, human-trafficking, gambling
and terrorism into legal investments.