A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Thursday, April 19, 2018
Sri Lanka Committed To Preventing Financial Crime
Sri
Lanka has long identified the risk of financial crime as a priority
area, given the country’s history in battling a sophisticated terror
organization. A number of measures were taken over the years and the
government is currently working on bringing on necessary amendments to
some of the existing regulations with the objective of preventing
financial crimes.
Minister of Finance and Media Mangala Samaraweera made these remarks at a
roundtable discussion on ‘Financial Regulation: Working Together to
Address De-Risking,’ held on the sidelines of the 2018 Commonwealth
Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), at the Mansion House in London,
today (17).
Full speech below:
Financial Regulation: Working Together to Address De-Risking
It is a pleasure to participate at this roundtable on an important and timely topic.
As the dynamics of the finance industry and technology constantly
evolve, it is essential that financial regulations remain one step
ahead. The sophistication of financial crimes has increased
exponentially in recent years and is a threat to all nations, be it
developing or developed nations. This has resulted in a number of
negative fallouts for international finance.
One such negative fall-out is “de-risking”, the scenario of global banks
selectively withdrawing from the business of correspondent banking.
This can have highly detrimental implications for banks in developing
countries in particular as it can shut them out of the global financial
architecture.
This is largely attributed to the shortcomings of the existing structure
of the financial system. Given the importance of correspondent banking
in a globalized world, it is important to take measures to enhance
respondent banks’ capacity to manage risks, improve communication
between correspondent and respondent banks, strengthen and effectively
implement regulatory and supervisory frameworks in line with
international standards, particularly for Anti Money Laundering and
counter-terrorist financing.
Distinguished Delegates,
Sri Lanka has long identified the risk of financial crime as a priority
area. Given the country’s history in battling a sophisticated terror
organization, addressing terrorist financing has long been on the
agenda. A number of measures were taken over the years and the
government is currently working on bringing on necessary amendments to
some of the existing regulations with the objective of preventing
financial crimes. Those measures include the introduction of Prevention
Of Money Laundering Act in 2006, Convention On The Suppression Of
Terrorist Financing Act in 2005, introduction of Financial transaction
reporting Act in 2006 and setting up the Financial Intelligence Unit at
the Central Bank.
More recently, steps have been taken to address emerging issues in
internationalization of financial crimes, and to meet our global
obligations as well. Since November 2017, Sri Lankan authorities have
taken a number of measures to enhance Anti Money Laundering compliance
such as introducing amendments to the Trust Ordinance, Companies Act,
enactment of the Proceeds of Crimes Act, enhancing Customer Due
Diligence Rules, and regulations on targeted financial sanctions on
proliferations.
Distinguished Delegates,
The challenge for countries like Sri Lanka is how to ensure continued
progress of financial inclusion in this context. At a more micro-level,
one of the major objectives of our government, embodied in the 2018
Budget themed Enterprise Sri Lanka, is to empower entrepreneurs by
providing access to finance. In order to ensure access to finance at
grass roots level, it is important for the Sri Lankan financial system
to have robust access and engagement with the global financial
architecture.
As the financial system develops, the laws and regulations aimed at
preventing financial crimes need to be updated. Sri Lanka very well
understands this reality and is taking every necessary measure to keep
abreast of the regulatory developments.