Suspicious financial transactions and activities in Bangladesh's financial sector find a spurt as intelligence reports around 65-percent annualised rise in the past fiscal.
Around 91 per cent of such transaction-and activity reports were filed by the commercial banks to the Bangladesh Financial Intelligent Unit (BFIU), according to its latest annual report.
Without sharing the exact amount of money involved in the STR/SAR, the BFIU said overall cash transactions from the banking sector throughout the immediate-past fiscal year increased notably to Tk 22.86 trillion, some Tk 1.75 trillion higher from the FY'22 tally of Tk 21.11 trillion.
Unveiling the BFIU's annual report at the central bank headquarters Tuesday for FY'23, head of the BFIU of Bangladesh Bank (BB) Md Masud Biswas said the unit received a total of 14,106 suspicious transaction reports (STR) and suspicious activity reports (SAR) from the 17 reporting agencies in the past fiscal year, up by 64.58 per cent from the previous year's (FY'22) 8,571.
In the FY'21, the number of STRs and SARs was 5,280.The numbers of STRs and SARs in FY'20, FY'19 and FY'18 were 3675, 3573 and 3878 respectively.
Of the total reports in FY'23, the highest 12,809 came from the commercial banks where the number of STRs or SARs swelled 60.13 per cent from the FY'22 count of 7,999.
The money remitters with 900 stood second and registered 97-percent more STR/SARs than previous year's, reflecting "emerging risks in the financial sector", he said.
The intelligence unit is responsible for analysing STRs, SARs, cash- transaction reports (CTRs) and information related to money laundering and terrorist financing reported from financial institutions and other sources.
Banks and other reporting agencies submit STRs and CTRs if they think that there might be a possibility of perpetrating money laundering.
As per the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2012, BFIU can obtain CTRs from banks as well as non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) and can subsequently analyse the conflated information.
Under the purview of CTR comes any cash deposit or withdrawal amounting to Tk 1.0 million and above, or equivalent foreign currency, conducted through single or multiple transactions in an account within a single day in banks and NBFIs.
This information is used for operational analysis, strategic assessment and risk-based supervision of banks and NBFls, the BFIU boss told financial reporters.
Responding to a question, Mr Masud Biswas said the service pattern in the banking sector keeps changing in this highly digitised regime, which brings in new types of digitised money-laundering tools like crypto-currency and online gambling, apart from traditional trade-based siphoning of money.
"So, preventing money laundering is getting tougher," he notes about the digital tricks of outwitting common intelligence in crime combat.
Highlighting the importance of cooperation and cautiousness of the bank officials, the BFIU chief unveils that more than 80 per cent of money laundering takes place through banking channel and they should pay serious attention in dealing with the trade-related issues.
"Bringing back laundered money is an extremely difficult process where many parties are involved and the legal framework in many cases in other countries," he told the reporters, virtually indicating little chances of recovery of the huge sums of funds siphoned off thus far from the country.
The situation being so desperate, BFIU now plans to sign deals with the US, the UK, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, the UAE, Switzerland, Thailand, Hong Kong and China for exchange of information, evidence and other necessary assistance in hope of repatriating the laundered money.
Deputy spokesperson of BB Sarwar Hossain and other senior BFIU officials were among others present at the annual report-publishing event.
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