The Central Bank of Sudan is strengthening anti-money laundering measures

Monetary authorities, operational banks, exchange offices and money transfer companies in Sudan have stepped up anti-money laundering measures aimed at preventing illegal financial operations, including money laundering, bribery, antiquities, human and arms trafficking, terrorist financing and others.

This week, Sudanese banks began to implement these measures, in accordance with the instructions of the Central Bank of Sudan, which on December 22 issued new regulatory and supervisory controls on correspondent banking relationships for the institutions in question, with the aim of strengthening the fight against money laundering measures.

Banks, exchange offices, financial transfers, leasing and microfinance institutions are the most prominent entities responsible for preventing money laundering.

Institutions engaged in the application of these procedures include banks, exchange companies, financial transfers, leasing, microfinance institutions and all other financial institutions licensed by the Central Bank to carry out specific financial activities and which carry out correspondent banking activities, whether international or local, in connection with the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Central Bank of Sudan directed these institutions to ensure that their local and foreign subsidiaries and affiliates comply with the application of the new controls.

The Central Bank obliged financial institutions that perform correspondent bank operations to apply enhanced measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in their transactions, stressing that correspondent activities include the provision of necessary services to domestic and foreign financial institutions, so that they can provide their clients, such as are accounts with interest in several currencies for foreign institutions and transfers. International telegraphic and clearing cheques, transit accounts, exchange services and services for clients that have the status of a financial institution, have a third party account in the books of the institutions, i.e. in whose business books the reporting institution has a Nostro account.

The General Manager of the Sudan Family Bank, Saleh Jibril, explained to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed the importance of these controls issued by the Central Bank and said that their purpose is “precautionary measure and monitoring of external changes that occur in order to preserve the reputation and security of the banking systems from penetration and exposure to money laundering operations, which harms the Sudanese economy,” pointing to recent warnings from the Central Bank about the dangers of digital currency trading.

The Bank instructed financial institutions performing correspondent banking activities to undertake to submit documents describing the commercial offer for each service, means of payment, relevant geographic area and applications used, to review the documents by the Compliance Department, to observe due diligence for the correspondent bank clients, collect information about the contracting institution and its reputation and the quality of supervision to which it is subject, the legislation on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing in the country in which the contracting institution operates, the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism policy and the certification of the US Anti-Terrorism Act for foreign banks.

Sudan Family Bank CEO, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed: The controls aim to preserve the reputation and integrity of the banking system from penetration and exposure to money laundering operations.

It also tightened the controls of institutions that practice bank correspondence by developing special procedures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, and that transit accounts are created and used only for low-risk clients after checking these procedures through the Compliance Department, with a complete ban on entering into a relationship or continuing the relationship with the fake institution. Or has a relationship with a fraudulent institution, and that correspondent agreements include specific provisions to mitigate the risk of high-risk transactions, make separate transfers of checks you receive from institutions located in high-risk geographic areas, and focus your risk assessment on the level of money laundering and financing risk of terrorism represented by the client.

The Central Bank has obliged institutions that perform correspondent banking operations to create an official policy related to correspondent banking operations, which describes the operating entities at the central level, the level of the group that performs these operations, current products and services, and hierarchical and functional hierarchy.

It is also necessary that this policy contains management rules and basic principles of compliance that regulate the work of correspondence relations between the institution and the client (such as procedures for concluding a business relationship, user acceptance policy, classification according to the level of risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, and the application of enhanced and in-depth procedures ), provided that the approval of this policy by the Board of Directors, along with the creation of a program to combat bribery and corruption, and that it contains provisions for correspondent banking activities, including management rules, ethics and transparency that set special conditions for employees who have access to sensitive information or to those who are responsible for the contracting authorities.

The Central Bank of Sudan justified its issuance of these controls by seeking to restore and develop correspondent banking relationships

Also, that this program is supervised by the director of the Compliance Department, and is subject to periodic audit by internal audit and as part of external audit, with the application of tools to detect unusual transactions and determine the characteristics of cash flows. by number and value in order to determine the differences and presence of political persons in any A phase of the transactions being processed, with the application of automated tools to examine the list of individuals and entities prohibited by UN Security Council resolutions related to the financing of terrorism and the financing of proliferation and placement appropriate processing rules for alerts.

The central bank has called on the external auditors of the institutions concerned to inform it if any breach of controls is discovered.

The Central Bank of Sudan justified its issuance of these controls in an effort to restore and develop correspondent banking relationships, following global and local developments in this area, applying best practices for correspondent banking relationships, and in accordance with regulatory and supervisory requirements to combat money laundering and terrorist financing on the basis of the Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism and the Law on Bank Regulation.