Bankers in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are nervous about a new visit by Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s money laundering monitoring organization, which they expect in early autumn.
Eight years after BiH was removed from the gray list, it is increasingly certain that BiH will return to that list because the authorities have not adopted the necessary laws or implemented reforms to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.
Returning to the list will make financial transactions more difficult for companies, but also for citizens, fears Samir Lacevic from the Banks Association of BiH.
BiH conducts the largest number of monetary transactions with the countries of the European Union (EU) and returning to the list risks making these transactions more difficult. Lacevic predicts that cooperation with banks will be canceled, that is, their accounts with their business partners around the world will be closed.
In order to prevent this, Lacevic believes, it is necessary to urgently pass a new Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, which is ready and needs to be harmonized with EU directives.
In addition to this law, there is a whole series of recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that BiH has not fulfilled since the last visit of experts. Moneyval confirmed that they will make an evaluation visit to BiH in the fall of this year and that the report will be adopted next year, in 2024, and published soon after.
BiH was removed from the FATF blacklist in February 2018, and before that, in 2015, from the Moneyvala gray list. The EU kept our country on the list of high-risk countries until May 2020.
The draft Law on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, which needs to be harmonized with EU directives and regulations in this area, is in the final stage, the Ministry of Security of BiH confirmed, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
