Fiji has strong anti-money laundering laws and regulations, in particular the Financial Transactions Reporting Act and the FTR Regulations.
Fiji FIU director Razim Buksh said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) team met him and his senior staff during their visit to Fiji with discussions centred around Fiji’s anti-money laundering (AML) framework.
“Fiji was assessed on its compliance with international anti-money laundering standards in 2016.
“Fiji remains committed to addressing the remaining gaps identified in the 2016 compliance evaluation as outlined in the Mutual Evaluation Report (MER),” said Mr Buksh.
According to Mr Buksh Fiji was rated non-compliant/partially compliant for 23 out of 40 recommendations in the 2016 MER, adding that since 2016, Fiji has addressed the deficiencies in 17 of the recommendations.
“Fiji is currently taking measures to address the remaining gaps in six key areas, namely, beneficial ownership information of legal entities and legal arrangements, NPO sector, targeted financial sanctions for terrorism and proliferation financing and the virtual assets sector.”
Mr Buksh said these measures included the review of existing laws and regulations, policy and institutional measures and possible technical assistance from international partner organisations.
The IMF team had urged Fiji to continue its progress with its anti-money laundering regulations.
“We advised the IMF team that Fiji also has a strong and effective anti-money laundering framework.
“The meeting discussed at length the licensing and prudential supervision framework for banks and Fiji’s remittance sector.
“All banks together with the remittance service providers are fully complying with Fiji’s AML requirements,” he said.
Mr Buksh said the FIU had explicit powers under the FTR Act to impose sanctions for any non-compliance including monetary sanctions for all covered financial institutions and non-bank financial institutions such as legal practitioners, accountants and real estate agents.
He said the Fiji FIU looked forward to recommendations from the IMF to further strengthen Fiji’s anti-money laundering framework.
