AMLC’s financial intelligence unit eyes data mining system

THE ANTI-MONEY Laundering Council (AMLC) is looking to enhance its investigative powers by employing a system to assess financial data, with the agency eyeing to acquire a new platform for data mining.

The AMLC published a bid bulletin on Monday for a data mining system for financial intelligence analytics for financial crimes. The government unit is looking to spend P54 million for the new service, according to the bid invitation published on Business World.

The financial intelligence unit – which is tasked to track, investigate, and recover illgotten wealth and combat terrorist financing – said they are eyeing to set up a specialized system that would collate and analyze financial data from reporting institutions.

A pre- bid conference is set on Friday for prospective bidders. Proposals will be accepted until Oct. 12.

Implementing rules and regulations for the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001 were amended last year, which included the requirement for all covered institutions – or those required to regularly submit transaction data to the regulator – to register with the AMLC’s electronic reporting system.

The latest National Risk Assessment report published by the AMLC last year showed a “high” threat for the Philippines to be used as a money laundering site globally, given its strategic location as an archipelago. It also pointed out the limited manpower of the regulator in overseeing every financial transaction as a hurdle.

Using data culled between 2011-2014, the Philippines is seen as an escape route for organized crime syndicates, with drug trafficking as well as graft and corruption among the biggest sources of dirty money.

Banks; trust firms; insurance and pre-need companies; securities dealers, brokers, salesmen; investment companies, agents, and consultants; jewelry dealers; pawnshops; foreign exchange dealers; money changers; quasi-banks; remittance or transfer companies, and e-money issuers are among those required to submit data to the AMLC.

Recently, President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed Republic Act 10927 requiring casino operators to also report to the AMLC for monitoring.

A bank and a remittance firm were involved in the $81-million cyber heist in February last year, which exploited gaping holes in the Philippines’ anti- money laundering regime by using local casinos in order to cleanse funds stolen from the Bangladesh central bank by still-unidentified hackers.

The new law signed on July 14 effectively now counts casinos, including Internet and ship- based casinos, as reporting institutions to the AMLC. This allowed the Philippines to finally move out of the watch list of the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering, which is the regional unit of the global watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Prior to this, the Philippines averted being blacklisted by the FATF after making a “high-level political commitment” under the Aquino administration to address structural gaps to curb illicit fund flows.

The FATF sets international standards for combating money laundering and counter-terrorism, placing countries in three categories, namely “grey list”, “dark grey list “and “black list.” Blacklisting meant sanctions that would make financial transactions with the affected country expensive.