India, Qatar FIUs bolster ties to curb money laundering

New Delhi, Nov 5: The Financial Intelligence Units of India and Qatar held a two-day meeting here to strengthen the relations between the two organisations and their commitment to assist each other in fighting the menace of money laundering and financing of terrorism, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday.

A nine-member delegation, headed by Sheikh Ahmed Al Thani, Head of Financial Intelligence Unit-Qatar (FIU-Qatar), held meetings with Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) headed by Vivek Aggarwal on November 4 and 5.

Aggarwal and Sheikh Ahmed Al Thani discussed current practices in the anti-money laundering and the countering of financing terrorism (AML/CFT) regime as well as possible areas of future collaboration between the two organisations.

Both sides also discussed various areas such as the IT systems used by the respective jurisdiction, the public-private partnership initiative of FIU-IND (FPAC), the private-private [artnership for Alliance of Reporting Entities in India for AML/CFT (ARIFAC), strategic analysis and various tools used by the two FIUs as well as FIU-IND’s experience in the area of virtual digital assets service providers.

Methods of effective information exchange were also discussed and deliberated upon.

The FIU-Qatar highly appreciated the IT system (FINNET 2.0) used by FIU-IND and mentioned that it is one of the most sophisticated systems used by any FIU. They expressed keenness to further understand the private-private partnership Initiative from FIU-IND which facilitates the collaboration amongst private sector players in the AML/CFT regime.

In order to provide insights into the functioning of AML/CFT stakeholders, two on-site visits were also scheduled for the Qatari delegation by FIU-IND which were extremely fruitful for them, according to the official statement.

FIU-Qatar and FIU-IND have cooperated over the years, through the informal information exchange on offences related to money laundering and financing of terrorism. Both the FIUs are members of Egmont Group and FATF and have been actively associated with various initiatives taken by these international organisations. In order to bolster cooperation, both FIUs have already signed a Memorandum of Understanding on information exchange in relation to money laundering, financing of terrorism and associated predicate offences in 2016.

At the end of the meeting, Sheikh Ahmed Al Thani invited Aggarwal to undertake a visit to FIU-Qatar in the near future to further build on the relationship.