The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria and Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit have condemned the high level of money laundering and terrorist financing in the country.
ABCON President, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, while speaking at a four-day joint nation-wide training/sensitisation programme on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism reporting for Bureaux de Change operators, said money laundering and financing terrorism posed enormous threats and challenges to the economy, security, and social life in Nigeria.
Gwadabe said the anti-money laundering training was 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 made it a crime.
Reacting, the NFIU boss, Ibrahim Pindar, advised ABCON to train BDCs regularly so as to cover the AML knowledge-gap, identified by most operators, and also ensure that their members register on the goAML portal.
NFIU recommended, “Those trained by the NFIU team should be engaged by ABCON to train their members on a continuous basis. Any change of Compliance Officer should promptly be reported to the NFIU. ABCON should ensure that the operators have alternates for their compliance officers for succession planning and continuity.”
Gwadabe said that the training was also meant to help BDCs maintain minimum standard of record keeping and increasing level of investors’ confidence for the economy.
ABCON and NFIU also advised BDCs to engage the services of Designated Compliance Officers to handle all their compliance-related issues.
Gwadabe said the policy on the recruitment of the Designated Compliance Officers by BDCs was already being implemented by ABCON and remained part of the association’s vision to revolutionalise BDC operations in Nigeria for global competitiveness and transparency.
He explained that the training would create awareness on the need to check money laundering and terrorist financing in this period of electioneering; and ensure that BDCs were not used to launder funds by Politically Exposed Persons.
“It will also upscale BDCs’ compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism for Banks and Other Financial Institutions in Nigeria Regulations, 2013,” he said.
