‘Firms need more fraud awareness’

MANUFACTURE

The Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has been working hard to make sure that Fiji is free from fraudulent.

The Fiji FIU is an integral part of Fiji’s fight against money laundering, terrorist financing, fraudulent activities, and other financial crimes.

Regulatory functions of FIU

■The FIU is also required under the Financial Transaction Reporting (FTR) Act to supervise and ensure that financial institutions comply with requirements under the FTR act and regulations.

FIU director Razim Buksh said : “In 2019, the FIU conducted onsite compliance visits of three law firms and four real estate agents to assess these businesses’ compliance with the FTR Act and Regulations.”

Onsite examination of law firms

Key findings from the FIU onsite examination of the law firms and real estate agents included:

■■o written anti-money laundering (AML) policies or procedures in place;

■most of the firms were not fully aware of their reporting obligations under the FTR act, thus, failed to report Cash Transaction Reports and Suspicious Transaction Reporting (STR);

■staff were not provided with AML training;

■there was lack of monitoring of client’s engagements or transactions for any complex, unusual or large transactions.

Results of assessments

The results of the assessments were shared with the management of the respective businesses with recommendations for further improvements in internal processes.

Policy advice

FIU provided policy advice to the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) supervisors as and when needed on AML/Combating of Financing of Terrorism (CFT) compliance issues.

The FIU also provided assistance to the RBF on the AML/CFT section of the on-site examinations of RBF licensed financial institutions..