ISLAMABAD: The Anti-Money Laundering Bill 2009 has been approved by the National Assembly’s standing committee on finance.
 
The draft bill is expected to be approved by the National Assembly during its current session, chairperson of the committee Fauzia Wahab told media personnel after a meeting on Tuesday.

The committee was informed that being a signatory to various UN conventions Pakistan was required to enforce anti-money laundering laws in line with international standards to combat funding of terrorists.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin, Finance Secretary Salman Siddique, deputy governor of the State Bank and other senior officials.

Mr Siddique said that Pakistan had been asked to upgrade existing anti-money laundering laws before February 2010. In case of failure, Pakistan would be declared a high-risk country and its letters of credit would not be honoured abroad.

The committee was informed that according to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body to combat financial crimes, Pakistan was among only five countries that were yet to upgrade ant-money laundering laws.

The other four countries were Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Sao Tome and Principe, a group of islands in Western Africa.In the bill, the penalty for directors and employees of a company involved in laundering money or funding terrorists is proposed to be increased from Rs1 million to Rs5 million.

The bill has also expanded the scope of money laundering as per the FATF requirements by adding concealment, disguise, third party laundering, conspiracy, attempts, aiding and abetting, facilitating and counselling as offences.

The committee has also approved amendments to banking regulations as suggested by the finance ministry.

Mr Tarin said the amendments were aimed at strengthening the State Bank. ‘The recent financial sector crisis in the US has proved that strict monitoring of banks is required,’ he said.