Conference on National Risk Assessment opens today
Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering is a financial intelligence unit of the Republic of Serbia and a central authority in the combat against money laundering and terrorism financing. Its term of reference is prescribed by the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing. According to the AML/CFT Law, the obligors shall file reports on suspicious transactions and persons (STRs) to the Administration to analyze, collect additional information and in case suspicion on money laundering and/or terrorism financing arises, to refer the data to relevant authorities, primarily to the law enforcement .
Since November 2010 the Project against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (MOLI Project) has been in progress in Serbia. The MOLI Project, which is 2,2 million EUR worth, is mostly financed from the European Union funds and implemented by the Council of Europe, aims to strengthen capacities primarily of the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering, but also of other state authorities which take part in the combat against money laundering and terrorism financing.
One of the activities within the Project is a national risk assessment of money laundering, a comprehensive process of collecting and analysing relevant data with the aim to assess a degree of expsoure of individual sectors to money laundering. Today the Conference on NRA is taking place in Belgrade , which is merely a beginning of the process, which will last until October 2012. The Conference brings together the World Bank experts, according to whose Methodology national risk assessment will be done, the Council of Europe experts, as well as the experts of OSCE.
Apart from the representatives of the international organizations, there will be a number of participants from state authorities which are part of the AML/CFT system – State Prosecutor’s Office, Appellate Courts, the police, Security-Information Agency, National Bank of Serbia, Securities Commission, Foreign Currency Inspectorate, and many others. The Administration is a coordinator of activities and the implementing authority of the national risk assessment.
As of 2013, national risk assessment will be a binding FATF (Financial Action Task Force) standard, and all the countries will have to conduct it. Because of the relevance of the Conference, there will be representatives of the countries in the region – Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania. Their presence will have a double benefit: the Republic of Serbia will certainly draw from the experience of the colleagues coming from the countries with similar legal systems, whereas the representatives of other countries will make good use of the experionece of the Republic of Serbia in this matter, Serbia being one of the first European countries to conduct national risk assessment.
