In the course of financial monitoring of clients, banks often face interesting cases like checking the legitimacy of regular cash withdrawal operations by the client-FLP or providing the group of companies with mutual financial assistance on an ongoing basis. Timely comprehensive professional analysis of customer information from various sources allows the bank to correctly assess its business and financial reputation, make an informed decision about the feasibility of cooperation and avoid possible problems with the regulator. This was during the modular qualification course "Financial monitoring in the bank. Actual issues, "said Sergey Dmitrov, a member of the board, head of the financial monitoring department of Bank Credit Dnipro.
The organizers of the training event for specialized employees of financial institutions and interested entrepreneurs are the National Center for Training of Banking Workers of Ukraine in conjunction with the Ukrainian Agency for Investment Development. The program was formed with the participation of the National Bank and the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine and was aimed at improving the skills of specialized professionals and the level of financial awareness of domestic business in compliance with the requirements of the current legislation in the field of financial monitoring. Course instructors were representatives of the State Service of Financial Monitoring of Ukraine, the National Commission for Securities and Stock Market and experienced specialists from the leading banks of Ukraine.
Expert of Bank Credit Dnipro spoke about ways of building an effective system of internal control of the bank to prevent violations when performing the functions of the subject of primary financial monitoring in the field of preventing and counteracting the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime, financing terrorism and financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He outlined the procedure and algorithm for conducting inspections of banks, the necessary amount of information / documents and the procedure for providing explanations, taking measures to identify violations and noted the high level of responsibility of banks as subjects of primary financial monitoring.
"The National Bank as a regulator pays great attention to the issue of financial monitoring and strictly punishes violators, as indicated by UAH 67 million of fines paid by banks in 2017 precisely for non-compliance with the requirements for financial monitoring. This is a normal move towards European norms and rules of transparency of doing business. During the transition period, market participants are accustomed to the new rules of the game, but in general, both customers and banks are sympathetic to the new changes. After all, the task of financial monitoring is to minimize the reputational risks of the bank, keeping track of the transparency of the customer business structure, disclosing the final beneficiaries, the correctness of economic and financial activity, "Sergei Dmitrov stressed.
Speakers and listeners of the event discussed a number of issues related to effective information interaction of banking institutions with the State Financial Monitoring Agency, the use of indicators of suspicious financial transactions, the specifics of banks performing financial monitoring in the securities market, the legal and regulatory framework for the procedure, and drew attention to the best international standards and practices.