60,000 bankers trained in detecting laundering, terror funds

Sixty thousand bank officials have been trained till now in skills to detect money laundering and terror financing in their transactions and economic channels, a senior official today said.

Financial intelligence and suspicious transactions analysis agencies are also working on strengthening the regime to detect and thwart terrorist financing instances in the country's economic and banking channels.

"Sixty thousand bank employees have been trained till now in anti-money laundering and combating financing of terror norms by us," Additional Director in Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Anand Jha said, speaking at a conference organised by industry body Assocham here.

Jha, while speaking at National conference on 'Money Laundering and its Fall Out', said the agency has been working diligently on the terror financing aspect and the "success has been good" on this front.

"We need to strengthen this (terrorist financing) regime and we are really working on that," he said.

The FIU, under the Union Finance Ministry, is the national agency responsible for receiving, analysing and disseminating suspicious transaction reports (STRs) and Cash Transaction Reports (CTRs) to security and anti-money laundering and tax evasion agencies of the country.

The FIU, under this mandate, trains bank officials and other functionaries of financial intermediaries and personnel from other law enforcement and probe agencies.

More than 1,400 instances of terror financing in country's economic channels were red-flagged by intelligence and security agencies last year, marking a 300% jump in such suspicious transactions.

The FIU was created in 2004 and it began the training programmes for officials few years after its establishment.