MINISTRY OF FINANCE FIU REPORT FOR 2024

Finance minister Colm Imbert today provided a summary of the Annual Financial Intelligence Unit report for 2024  Here are the details.

Transcript

00:00The Finance Minister outlined 22 key points in his recent summary, beginning with efforts

00:06to combat money laundering, terrorism financing, and the prolification of weapon financing.

00:11He highlighted the passage of three significant bills aimed at addressing these concerns during

00:16the reporting period.

00:18These bills include amendments to the anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism

00:23regulations as well as provisions for the abolition of preliminary inquiries and the

00:28introduction of initial insufficiency hearings.

00:31The Minister also emphasized the unit's efforts to align with global compliance standards,

00:37notably through the digital transformation of its supervisory functions to enhance operational

00:42capabilities.

00:43A key measure introduced during this period requires all supervised entities to register

00:49with the unit within three months of starting business operations or incorporation.

00:54In terms of enforcement, the Financial Intelligence processed the voluntary deregistration of

00:5825 entities as well as some removals initiated by the unit itself.

01:04Additionally, the central bank granted one new provisional electronic money issuer license

01:09and revoked another during this reporting period.

01:13The FIU reviewed risk assessment questionnaires from 238 non-profit organizations and brought

01:2011 new non-profits under its supervision.

01:23It also noted a consistent increase in due diligence practices among entities required

01:28to report to the unit every three months.

01:31Regarding anti-money laundering, counter-financing of terrorism and counter-prolification financing

01:36compliance, the unit conducted 61 compliance examinations for listed businesses with 62%

01:43identified as high risk.

01:46The FIU received a total of 1,459 suspicious transaction reports and suspicious activity

01:53reports from reporting entities.

01:55The banking sector continued to account for the largest share, representing 78% of the

02:00total.

02:01Other sectors such as money or value transfer service and cooperative societies accounted

02:06for 10% and 5% respectively.

02:09Notably, there was a substantial increase in suspicious transaction submissions from

02:14mortgage companies, rising from 4 to 44 submissions.

02:18However, the MVTS and cooperative society sectors saw a decline of 32% and 16% respectively.

02:26Overall, the non-bank financial institution experienced a 28% decrease in suspicious submissions.

02:33There was also an increase in suspicious transaction reports from motor vehicle sales, rising from

02:385 to 12 and a rise in submissions from attorneys at law, which increased from 1 to 4.

02:44The total monetary value of the 1,459 suspicious transactions reported during this period was

02:51$8.9 billion.

02:54Charlotte Kistel, TV6 News.