Trade Based Money Laundering is regarded as the basic challenge. Globally trillions of dollars worth of goods and services are moved from different countries. International trade is one of the major sources of movement of value. International Trade creates huge value for the financial institutions to generate the fee-based income from the trade transactions. This phenomenon signifies Trade Financing. Financial activities related to International and domestic trade is Trade Financing. The sheer size of the international trade generates trade money laundering opportunities.
However, 80 percent of trade activity is considered to be open account trade. An open account transaction is a sale where the goods are shipped and delivered before payment is due, which is not documented, thus offering no banking documentation to determine the authenticity.
Due to privacy and confidentiality considerations, some jurisdictions don’t allow sharing information across borders. Limitations and restrictions in international trade creates a conducive environment for criminal activities such as trade-based money laundering (TBML).
And, as it hides its activities among massive volumes of legitimate trade, it’s difficult to uncover. Techniques such as under- or over-invoicing, falsifying documents, and misrepresenting financial transactions, are difficult to trace as they can involve multiple transactions, parties, jurisdictions and even shell companies.
Diamond Trade
Consider Diamonds; as diamonds are subjective, how could compliance officers prove that the price paid for buying the diamonds was to hide funds, How he will define the funds as proceeds of crime? if the Customs Authorities have failed to address the discrepancies? Market drives the value of a commodity; it is the unregulated market.
Diamond may cost $300 or $30000. Additionally, true value is often difficult to set accurately. It is difficult to find out if someone is overpaying for a purpose to hide illicit funds or is that what they think it’s worth?
There is no definite price for international transactions. Compliance officers assigned the role of uncovering Trade Based Money Laundering face a distinct lack of information for specifics that can help determine accurate pricing. Even if more information about the quality of the product is available, it’s difficult for compliance officers to be experts in the price variances of multiple industries.
As International Trade grows bigger it creates larger opportunities for the Multinational Banks who will not want to burden legitimate trade but can’t afford to pay fines for the non-compliance with AML Laws.
Due Diligence to Prevent TBML
In order to effectively prevent the trade based money laundering transactions it is important that the compliance officers do their due diligence. Pricing is one of the important issues in combating the trade based money laundering. Compliance Officers can collect information from their business clients about the product range and pricing during the due diligence process. When the volume involved is large it is also important to research online to check the accuracy of the data. After completion of online research, you can check transactions against that data to ensure they are in line with expectations.
In higher risk situations, an actual on-site visit can illuminate more information about the nature of the client.
Bankers investigating the Trade Based Money Laundering cases often recommend that in addition to training, due diligence is an important aspect. It is always helpful to know who they are doing business with? Third party due diligence policies, screening and processes (Know Your Customers Customer or KYCC) are necessary to mitigate your risk.
While the tactics needed to properly vet against Trade Based Money Laundering require more extensive analysis. Fortunately the overall strategy is well-known – or more precisely Know Your Business (KYB), as we are talking about business entities. Note that the second step of KYC is to understand the nature of the client’s activities.
What is your company’s appetite for risk and what risk does that client pose for Trade Based Money Laundering? There are certain industries, such as used cars that pose a much higher risk for Trade Based Money Laundering, or certain countries that pose a higher risk. In these high-risk situations, enhanced due diligence procedures (EDD) are in order to fully check the background, ownership and business dealings of the client.
Trade Facilitation
According to the study conducted by the World Economic Forum, Singapore dominates the world in terms of facilitating the trade. Singapore surpassed the European counterparts as its ports are more accessible for cross border transactions. This is the reason Singapore faces the risk of trade-based money laundering than any other nation. The monetary authority of Singapore has however issued the guidelines for the financial institutions. Since Singapore is covered by the countries where the crime rates are comparatively higher, Singapore is treated as the safe haven by the countries like China and North Korea.
