Isle Of Man To Host Anti-Money Laundering Workshops

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

18 February 2002

According to a report in the Isle of Man Online news service last week, the jurisdiction is to host two anti-money laundering workshops for managers and compliance officers from the island's financial services sector.

The meetings, which will take place on February 19 and 20, are designed to give financial service providers an idea of the risks to which their organisation is exposed, and to educate managers and staff in the procedural requirements of anti-money laundering measures.

Stephen Platt, co-author of the MLRO Reference Guide, and Jersey-based finance professional, is running the courses. Over the past 18 months, according to the IOM Online, he has assisted the regulatory authorities in Jersey, Guernsey, the Cayman Islands, the Seychelles, Mauritius, Luxembourg, and the UK.

Mr Platt said last week that during the workshops, finance professionals would be: 'looking at establishing a code of best international regulatory practice that transcends national boundaries, one that will serve to protect both that jurisdiction and the individual organisations operating within it.'

He also observed that the international climate in financial centres world-wide had changed as a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks. He explained that prior to those events, companies would have looked at their risk exposure to money laundering activities in two ways - their main concerns would have been the source of the money, and the activities of their clients.

'But September 11 opened a whole new line of questioning, a third area of exposure,' Mr Platt explained. 'To what purpose did the client put the money? If the cash was put at some future point towards funding an atrocity, then that's where the risk exposure comes into play.'

Recommended