Financial Intelligence Unit Functions - Assignment Example

The study reveals that the Australian FIU which is commonly referred to as The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC); has the legislative power to seek information that it requires from reporting institutions. AUSTRAC gathers money laundering and terrorist finance STRs from both financial and non-financial institutions. This could be amplified further by other examples within the same context. For instance in Malaysia where the FIU, with the help and support of Bank Negara Malaysia, works with over twelve foreign and domestic bureaus to gather, assess, and disseminate financial intelligence and information (Shanmugam and Thansegaran, 2008, 334). The Indian FIU also adds weight to the findings and facts pointed out above, that is; FIU_IND requests for information regarding cash and suspicious transactions from both financial and non-financial institutions (Sathye and Patel, 2007, 397-398). It should be noted that the FIUs from the three various countries highlighted above carry out this function as required by the EGMONT group.

• FIU receives money laundering and terrorism finance STRs through various channels.

Recommendation 40 attributed to the 49 recommendations constituted by the FATF states that: Nations should make sure that their competent authorities give a comprehensive possible range of global cooperation to their foreign counterparts. There ought to be an effective and clear manner to facilitate a timely and productive exchange directly among counterparts about money laundering and the primary predicate offenses. The exchange of information could either be impulsively or upon request. The interpretative segment of this recommendation gives precision on key definitions as follows: Counterparts are defined as authorities that employ synonymous functions and responsibilities. Competent Authorities on the other hand are defined as law enforcement and administrative authorities charged with the responsibility of fighting money laundering and terrorist financing. This definition includes FIU (Murphy, 2006, p 422: Bosworth Davies, 2006, p 364: Masciandaro, 2005, p 354:Biagioli, 2006, p 370 ). This supports the fact that other than obtaining critical information from financial institutions they receive information from their counterparts.

In Belgium for instance, the Anti Money Laundering Law of 1993 specified institutions obligated to report money laundering and terrorism finance STRs to the FIU. Initially, only financial institutions were obligated to report suspicious transactions; however, non-financial institutions gradually espoused this obligation. That is, all the institutions under the Anti Money Laundering legislation bear the obligation of reporting suspicious transactions to the FIU (Verhage, 2009, p 116). More or less of the same pattern is observed in Sweden where the FIU receives STRs from various sources. Some of the sources reporting suspicious transactions to the FIU in Sweden entail; banks, exchange offices, auditors, car dealers, casinos, money transfer agencies, financing companies, and so on(Magnusson, 2009, p 106).