Headquarters of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV). The SBV has directed commercial banks, gold trading companies, and payment intermediary companies to focus on strengthening customer identification and, if there are any unusual signs, they must report to the SBV’s Department of Anti-Money Laundering. — Photo sbv.gov.vn

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has required relevant parties to strengthen the monitoring and reporting of transactions that are suspected of involving money laundering.

Under a document on compliance with the law on preventing and combating money laundering and terrorist financing issued on Thursday, the SBV has directed commercial banks, gold trading companies, and payment intermediary companies to focus on strengthening customer identification and, if there are any unusual signs, they must report to the SBV’s Department of Anti-Money Laundering.

Accordingly, to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of money laundering prevention and combat, they must strictly implement the regulations in the Law on Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering 2022; Decree No. 19/2023/NĐ-CP dated April 28, 2023 of the Government detailing a number of articles of the Law on Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering; Decision No. 11/2023/QĐ-TTg dated April 27, 2023 of the Prime Minister regulating the level of large value transactions that must be reported; and Circular No. 09/2023/TT-NHNN dated July 28, 2023 of the SBV Governor guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering.

In particular, they must focus on strengthening customer identification, including collecting, updating, and verifying customer identification information according to the provisions of Articles 9 to 14 of the Law on Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering, and Article 6 of Decree. No. 19, to ensure customer identification and customer transactions to be carried out in accordance with information about the customer, business activities, money laundering risk level and origin of customer assets.

Large value transactions must be reported to the SBV’s Department of Anti-Money Laundering according to the provisions of Article 25 of the Law on Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering. Electronic money transfer transactions must be also reported as stipulated in Article 34 of the Law on Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering; and Article 9 of Circular No. 09.

Through customer identification and transaction monitoring, if detecting unusual signs, they must report to the SBV’s Department of Anti-Money Laundering on suspicious transactions as prescribed in Articles 26 to Article 33 of the Law on Prevention and Combat of Money Laundering. Besides the report, they must timely provide information and documents related to suspicious transactions, and coordinate with competent State agencies according to the provisions of law on prevention, anti-money laundering. — VNS