Pubdate: Thu, 25 Apr 2002
Source: Frontier Post, The (Pakistan)
Copyright: 2002 The Frontier Publications (Pvt)
Contact:  http://frontierpost.com.pk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/575

US ANNOUNCES NEW RULES AGAINST MONEY LAUNDERING

ISLAMABAD: The Bush Administration has announced new rules requiring a 
broader range of financial companies including credit card firms - to adopt 
comprehensive anti-money laundering programmers.

The US Treasury Department targets illegal drug rings and terrorist funding 
networks, implements provisions of the "Patriot Act" enacted by Congress 
following the September 11 attacks against the US, said a USIS press 
release Wednesday.

Treasury said industries affected by the regulations include mutual funds, 
operators of credit card system, money services business such as money 
transfer companies and cheque cashers, securities brokers and dealers 
registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and future 
commission merchants and accompanying introducing broken registered with 
the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Those industries with the exception of broker dealers and futures 
commission traders, will have 90 days to develop anti-money laundering 
programmes, Treasury said.

Officials were considering whether to apply anti-money laundering rules to 
other industries, including dealers in precious metals or jewels, 
pawnbrokers, travel agents and dealers in automobile airplanes and boats, 
it said.

A senior Treasury official told reporters that rules covering hedge funds 
and insurance companies would be released in the next few weeks.

Companies will be required to train employees to detect money laundering 
methods, establish procedures to identify risks and opportunities for abuse 
and commission independent audits, according to Treasury officials.

The department also announced that it would be sending to Congress three 
reports, including one that analyzes options for improving US citizens 
obligation to report their interests in foreign bank accounts; another 
report addresses the difficulties faced by US banks in verifying the 
identities of foreign nationals seeking to open accounts and a third covers 
the role of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in combating money laundering.
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MAP posted-by: Beth