Badrul Ahsan :
Suspicious transactions through banking and non-banking financial institutions have marked a 54.20 percent rise in the fiscal year 2015-16, as intelligence agencies pointed to possible money laundering in its reports submitted to the central bank.
According to Bangladesh Bank (BB) sources, suspicious transaction reports (STR) jumped to 1,687 in the fiscal year 2015-16 from 1,094 in the FY 2014-15.
The agencies submitted 416 STRs in FY13 and 621 STRs in FY14.
Tk 3,035.93 crore has been transacted during the time, according to the STR.
A BB official told The New Nation on Thursday that the STRs usually increased when the country faced an upward trend in money laundering.
However, money market experts have often suspected that money laundering was being perpetrated through the suspicious transactions mainly behind the under-invoicing and over-invoicing.
“Whenever money laundering takes place, suspicious transactions would increase. So there is nothing to be surprised hearing increase in suspicious transactions as we all know that huge amount of money has been laundered in recent years,” Dr Saleh Uddin Ahmed, former governor of BB told The New Nation.
He also said, “Such transactions may increase further in the coming years as national election is nearing. Many political musclemen and government supported burecrates will now try to keep their black money in safe place and launder.”
According to a Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management research report released in June, a large amount of money is being laundered abroad from Bangladesh through export and import business or trade financing.
After receiving the STRs, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), a wing of the central bank to tackle money laundering and terror financing, conducted 63 special inspections on banks in FY16.
The BFIU also carried out 27 onsite inspections on 27 mobile financial service providers (head offices and agents) during FY16.
The central bank unearthed some money laundering related crimes after conducting the inspections, the BB official said.
The BB, however, did not reveal the unearthed money laundering cases in its report.
The BIFU received 91.70 per cent STRs from banks and the rest were submitted by other reporting agencies including non-banking financial institutions or NBFIs and insurance companies. The foreign commercial banks submitted the highest number of STRs (642) in FY16 despite having the lowest number of branch network and clients.
The private commercial banks and Islamic banks submitted 511 STRs and 362 STRs respectively in FY16.
Of the total suspicious transactions, 99.86 per cent or Tk 3,035.93 crore was transacted at different banks where Islamic banks made the highest contribution to the transaction volume followed by the state-owned banks.
Islamic banks reported to the central bank Tk 1,500 crore suspicious transactions, state banks Tk 984.15 crore, private banks Tk 313.09 crore and foreign banks Tk 234 crore.
The BB official said that STRs had been increasing over the last few years, indicating the rising money laundering during the period. According to a study released in May by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity, illicit financial outflow from Bangladesh was estimated at $8.97 billion (about Tk 72,000 crore) in 2014.
The amount of laundered money in 2014 by traders ranged from $4.96 billion to $7.88 billion or the highest 88 per cent through trade misinvoicing -over-invoicing in import and under-invoicing in export.
Every year, on an average, some $5.3 billion to $7.5 billion was siphoned off the country during 2005-2014, according to the study.
