Fintrac To Receive One Time Budget Boost

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

26 October 2001

According to reports, the fledgling Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (Fintrac), is set to receive additional resources in the next budget, before it becomes operational in the fight against terrorism on November 8th.

When new anti-money laundering regulations come into force in Canada next month, Fintrac, which was created in June 2000 to combat money laundering, will have its mandate extended to include the financial monitoring of suspected terrorist assets and proceeds of crime. However, it will not begin to monitor and report on large cross-border transactions until 2002.

Jim Peterson, the Canadian Secretary of State for Financial Institutions, held a press conference on Thursday to announce this latest in a series of government boosts to federal agencies. It is unclear how much the Centre will receive in the budget, however; the Canadian government had already allocated $253 million of the $280 million committed to fighting terrorism prior to the announcement.

Before it got wind of the forthcoming injection of cash, Fintrac had already announced that it intended to add an extra 35 employees to its 95 strong staff in order to deal with additional responsibilities arising from the September 11th attacks.

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