The Makati Business Club (MBC) yesterday joined calls to Congress for the lifting of the bank secrecy for both private and public persons so the country can comply with the standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) network
MBC in a statement expressed support to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez’s call to lift bank secrecy and strengthen anti-money laundering laws.
The MBC said failure to comply with the FATF standards by October 2020 will result in the country being subjected to restrictions and additional costs that will hit legitimate transactions including the remittances of overseas Filipinos.
“More importantly, lifting of the bank secrecy laws will enable the country to better address public and private corruption and collect proper taxes, resulting in more funds for much-needed public services and infrastructure,” the MBC added.
Dominguez III last Friday said the Department of Finance (DOF) is ready to work with Congress to speed up the approval of measures amending the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) and the Bank Secrecy Law.
The calls are made in the wake of reports of travelers bringing in huge amount of foreign currencies into the country.
Dominguez said the DOF and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) have been jointly pushing for these amendments to strengthen the country’s financial system, which is plagued with loopholes that allow travellers to bring unrestricted amounts of foreign cash into the country, possibly to launder them here, or worse, for use by international criminal syndicates or terrorist networks.
“It is also very likely that the bulk foreign currencies are coming through our financial system through other channels, not only through the ports. They do this because they can.
Our laws have no teeth to investigate and prosecute these activities effectively. We don’t have enough tools to know where all this money is going, without being hamstrung by stringent bank secrecy laws,” he said.
