BB anti-money laundering guidelines for real estate developers, lawyers

FE Report | Published: November 01, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2025 06:01:00

Non-financial businesses and professions will have to comply with the existing rules and regulations of the Money Laundering Prevention Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act as reporting agencies to minimise their business risks, officials said.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) issued a guideline on prevention of money laundering and combating financing of terrorism for designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) Thursday and asked the agencies to submit their reports to the BB, if required.
Under the existing rules, real estate developer, dealer in precious metals or stones, trust and company service provider, lawyer, notary, other legal professional and accountant have been treated as DNFBPs.
This guideline has been prepared specially for DNFBPs to enable them to keep in place effective preventative measures against money laundering and terrorist financing related issues, which leads to establish their risk-free businesses.
Six DNFBPs, which include accountants, casinos, estate agents, lawyers, precious metals and precious stones dealers, and trust and company service providers have been brought under the existing laws in line with the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) recommendations.
The FATF is an inter-governmental body, whose job is to develop and promote policies, both national and international, to combat money laundering and check financing of terrorism.
"Some DNFBPs will have to submit cash transaction reports (CTR) to the central bank like the commercial banks and non-banking financial institutions," a senior official of the BB told the FE.
Any dealers in precious metal and stones and real estate developers engaged in cash transaction equal or over Tk 1.0 million need to submit CTR to the BB, the central banker explained.
He also said every reporting organisation including DNFBPs is required to put in place anti-money laundering programme for their business and provide anti- money laundering training to their employees.
"The DNFBPs are required to keep proper records and report suspicious transactions like financial institutions," the BB official noted.
The central bank said an overriding aim of this guideline is to ensure that appropriate identification information is obtained in relation to their clients by DNFBPs.
"This is not only to assist the detection of suspect transactions but also to create an effective 'audit trail' in the event of an investigation, if necessary," the BB said in its guidelines.