Nagad playing effective role in combating money laundering: BFIU

Nagad has been playing an effective role in the fight against money laundering and financing terrorism for sustainable business, said senior officials of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) at a workshop.

Nagad, the digital financial service of Bangladesh Post Office, organised the daylong workshop on "Role of Steps Aimed at Tackling Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism for Sustainable Business" at the InterContinental Dhaka on Saturday.

The programme was a part of a broader effort to raise awareness among the officials of Nagad about combating money laundering and terrorist financing, said a press release.

The BFIU is the central agency of Bangladesh responsible for combating money laundering and terrorist financing by analysing suspicious transaction reports and information.

Around 50 top officials of Nagad and senior officials of the BFIU and the postal department took part in the event.  

Nagad and the BFIU put stress on effective management to combat money laundering and terrorist financing for ensuring a sustainable growth of the fast-growing digital financial services sector in the country.

Abu Hena Mohd Razee Hassan, head of the BFIU, was present at the programme as chief guest while Md Eskandar Miah, deputy head of the BFIU, and Md Siraz Uddin, director-general of the postal directorate, attended the event as special guests.  

Md Sawkatul Alam, general manager of the BFIU, and Tanvir A Mishuk, managing director of Nagad, were present at the programme presided over by Md Shafayet Alam, Nagad's chief anti-money laundering compliance officer and executive director.

The BFIU chief said all the financial institutions in the country were acting as individual detectives of the government by informing the BFIU about suspicious transactions.

Md Siraz Uddin, director-general of the postal directorate, said Nagad had been advancing very fast since its inception.

"Every transaction going through Nagad is secure as it uses modern technologies," he added.

Tanvir A Mishuk said the identity of every customer had been verified as Nagad had been using software like KYC (Know Your Customer) and Optical Character Reader (OCR) from the very beginning.

So, it was not easy to carry out money laundering and financing of terrorism through Nagad, he said.

"Chasing crimes and criminals becomes easier if technologies are used to carry out every transaction. As Nagad has been using state-of-the-art technologies since its inception, all information will be readily available if supervision beefs up," he added.

Md Sawkatul Alam, Mohammad Mahbub Alam, deputy general manager of BFIU, and Joint Directors Md Masud Rana and Gazi Monir Uddin made presentations at the workshop.

Through the presentations, they apprised the officials of Nagad about the role of financial institutions in implementing the rules and regulations on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism and how they can take effective measures.