Economic Desk: The inaugural ceremony of the Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Officers Conference of Scheduled Banks-2025 was held on April 11, 2025 at “Hotel Radisson Blu”, Chittagong, organized by the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) and in collaboration with The Association of Anti Money Laundering Compliance Officers of Banks in Bangladesh (AACOBB). The Governor of Bangladesh Bank, Mr. Dr. Ahsan H. Mansur inaugurated the conference as the chief guest. The inaugural ceremony of the conference held under the chairmanship of A.F.M. Shahinul Islam, Chief Officer of BFIU, was attended by the Chairman of the Association of Bankers Bangladesh, Selim R.F. Hossain, as the special guest. In addition, the Chairman of AACOBB, Mohammad Ziaul Hasan Mollah, delivered the welcome speech. The inaugural ceremony was attended by the Executive Director of Bangladesh Bank, Deputy Head of BFIU, BFIU officials, CEOs of various commercial banks, and heads and deputy heads of anti-money laundering compliance officers of 60 banks operating in Bangladesh.
The chief guest of the ceremony, the Governor of Bangladesh Bank, in his speech, termed the issue of bringing back money laundered abroad as one of the main goals of the interim government. He said that the BFIU, Bangladesh Bank and various other government agencies are working in a coordinated manner to bring back money laundered from Bangladesh through the formation of an inter-agency task force. He also said that the remittance flow coming into the banking channel has increased by a record amount in recent times, which is a reflection of the reduction in money laundering. As a result of the reduction in money laundering and the contractionary monetary policy, the foreign exchange rate and the macroeconomic situation have stabilized to some extent. If monetary policy is formulated and implemented through coordination between macroeconomic indicators including inflation, rate of return on investment, it will play a helpful role in preventing money laundering.
He mentioned that in a recent review, the lack of institutional good governance has been identified as the main reason for irregularities, corruption and money laundering in the banking sector. He said that those banks which have been able to ensure institutional good governance are now the pioneers in the country’s banking sector. Stressing the importance of the autonomy of the central bank, he further said that if it was possible to ensure the real autonomy of the central bank, such a crisis would not have arisen in the country’s banking sector. The current government is also considering this issue seriously.
AACOBB Chairman Mr. Mohammad Ziaul H. Mollah expressed his commitment to strengthen AML/CFT compliance fearlessly. In his welcome address, the Chairman of the Association of Bankers Bangladesh, Mr. Selim R. F. Hossain, called for strengthening technology-based monitoring systems to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing and taking effective measures to eliminate deficiencies in institutional governance.
The President of the event, A. F. M. Shahinul Islam, Chief Officer of the BFIU, highlighted the negative impact of uncontrolled credit flow in the banking sector, increase in default rate, loan fraud, lack of corporate governance and the menace of money laundering and hundi on the country’s economic growth, inflation, foreign exchange reserves, balance of payments and other macroeconomic issues. He further mentioned that the new leadership in various sectors of the interim government and the economy and various policy and timely initiatives of Bangladesh Bank have already started to have a positive impact on the reserve and foreign exchange market management as remittance flows have increased. In his speech, he emphasized on ensuring a stable economic system free from money laundering and terrorist financing risks to maintain discipline in the banking sector. In addition, he emphasized the role of corporate governance in ensuring transparency and accountability in the financial sector. He urged banks to strengthen their AML/CFT compliance and monitoring systems to ensure discipline and corporate governance in the financial sector. He also expressed hope that the united efforts of all stakeholders, including the Inter-Agency Task Force and the Banking Sector Reform Task Force, will ensure overall welfare of the economy, including prevention of money laundering. It is worth noting that the conference discussed the role of anti-money laundering measures in preventing corporate abuse and money laundering in overcoming the crisis in the banking sector, new types of money laundering including gold smuggling, illegal hundi, online gaming/betting/forex trading and cryptocurrency transactions, and strategies to prevent them. Other sessions discussed thematic types of problems and strategies to deal with them.
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