Efficient operations of financial intelligence services (FIS) can be ensures only through their independence and autonomy, as concluded by participants of the forum Autonomy of Financial Intelligence Units: Creation of an effective money laundering the terrorism financing prevention system on Monday, 7 February.
International finance intelligence organisation Egmont Group chair Hennie Verbeek-Kusters stressed at the online forum that FIS play a unique role – they link the private sector to law enforcement institutions, and their independence and autonomy is very important.
In situation when someone from the «outside» needs to interfere with FIS operations there is a risk of information leaks. Such situations also reduce the trust in services and their resilience against financial risks, stressed Hennie Verbeek-Kusters, adding that criminals will always look for weak spots.
She said the information FIS receive from the private sector and its quality depend on the level of trust. At the same time, the received data needs to be protected, which is the objective of financial intelligence services. It is also highly important to ensure in the exchange of information with partners that the information is used only for its intended purpose – if the FIS is not independent, there is a risk of this information being used inappropriately. Independence of services is also important to ensure overcome challenges presented by corruption, said Hennie Verbeek-Kusters.
«It is fundamentally important to make sure both private, public and foreign partners trust financial intelligence services,» the expert stressed.
She added that workers of services should be protected against criminal and civil prosecution if they perform good faith investigations. Appointment of management of financial intelligence services should be apolitical and transparent. During the selection process, it is necessary to take into account the experience, accomplishments or failures of chosen candidates.
At the same time, Verbeek-Kusters added it is important to ensure balance between independence and responsibilities.
She explained foreign partners should have enough confidence that the FIS they cooperate with have sufficient independence and autonomy to perform their duties and be able to provide confidentiality of the information they receive. Information exchange in an international context with based on mutual trust between financial intelligence services.
If there is no mutual trust, the financial intelligence service loses the ability to benefit from international information exchange and cooperation with partners, which can negatively affect the reputation of the state, added Verbeek-Kusters.
Former FATF executive secretary David Lewis said in a situation when a financial intelligence service of some country is not sufficiently independent, is inefficient, or it does not have sufficient financing, it could impact the entire system. It can also affect a country’s ability to prevent money laundering and affect its economic development.
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David Lewis said in cases when a country’s financial intelligence service does not work sufficiently well, it increases the risk of the country’s addition to the «grey list». This, on the other hand, can affect up to 70-80% of a country’s GDP.
He also stressed the importance of enhancing financial intelligence services’ analytical services. «If services depend only on reports of suspicious or unusual dealings received from the private sector, financial intelligence services would not be able to uncover criminal schemes. It is important that these services are able to analyse banking operations and related data on their own,» said Lewis.
The international forum is organised by Latvian FID. The target audience of the forum are policy-makers, decision-makers, FIS and law enforcement institution representatives, supervisory institutions and other institutions engaged in prevention of money laundering and terrorism prevention on a local and international level.
Experts: only independence and autonomy can ensure efficient operations of financial intelligence services
