Bureaux de Change (BDC) operators are preparing for the annual evaluation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) team visit to Nigeria.
Aminu Gwadabe, president, Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), who spoke with financial journalists ahead of the FATF visit, said the BDCs were getting ready to receive the FATF team.
He said ABCON, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was organising a sensitisation workshop for over 4,500 licensed BDCs in the country.
He said the workshop, which will hold in the six geopolitical zones across the country, would take off in the next one week, saying the BDCs would be trained on the obligation of registering and filling reports on the NFIU goAML-Anti-Money Laundering portal.
The anti-money laundering training is intended to familiarise BDC operators with the process of money laundering — the criminal business used to disguise the true origin and ownership of illegal cash — and the laws that make it a crime, he said.
He said money laundering and terrorist financing pose not only a threat, but also were enormous threats and challenges to the economy, security, and social life in Nigeria, the region and globally.
He said the training was also meant to help BDCs maintain minimum standard of record keeping and increasing level of investors’ confidence for the economy.
The training, the ABCON boss added, will create awareness on the need to check money laundering and terrorist financing; ensure that BDCs are not used to launder funds by Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs). It will also upscale BDCs’ compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) for Banks and Other Financial Institutions in Nigeria Regulations.
Gwadabe said the visit became necessary after the FATF team in February, named Nigeria in a proposed European Union blacklist of nations seen as posing a threat because of lax controls on terrorism financing and money laundering.
The criteria used to blacklist countries include low sanctions against money laundering and terrorism financing, insufficient cooperation with the EU on the matter and lack of transparency over the beneficial owners of companies and trusts.
Gwadabe said the visit by the FATF team would enable it see new efforts by the country to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing.
As the global body that sets the standard for AML/CFT efforts, the FATF team will assess banks and other financial institutions compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) measures, he said.
