No money laundering in RP: Buenaventura

No money laundering in RP: Buenaventura

Agence France-Presse, Manila

Philippine financial regulators are to meet with officials of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) next week in a fresh bid to be removed from a list of money laundering havens.

Philippine central bank governor Rafael Buenaventura will lead the country's delegation to the meeting in Brisbane, Australia from June 4 to 7.

"We're going to Brisbane next week to convince the FATF to remove us from the blacklist," Buenaventura told reporters, adding he expects Manila to be completely off the money- laundering list by the end of the year.

The Philippines remains on the Paris-based FATF's list of 19 countries deemed not to be doing enough to curb money laundering despite Manila's passage last year of a law criminalizing the trafficking of dirty money.

The FATF, a high-profile group of the world's leading economies, had earlier asked Manila to amend certain provisions of the law it deemed unfavorable in the fight against money laundering.

Among the requests was to lower the limit of suspected bank deposits that could be investigated for money laundering.

Buenaventura said the country's anti-money laundering council, the enforcement arm of the law, has already frozen at least five bank accounts and are currently monitoring six others.

"We will mention these five cases to the FATF. That will be the proof that the law is effective in this country," Buenaventura said, adding that the five unnamed accounts frozen totaled some 45 million pesos (US$900,000).