Cash transactions of less than NT$500,000 are to receive less scrutiny and no ID card numbers would be needed for deposits of less than NT$30,000 without a passbook, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday, part of efforts to reduce the burden on low-risk clients amid efforts to combat money laundering.
The FSC would announce new guidelines for low-risk clients before next month, since financial institutions are preparing for heavy transaction volumes before the Lunar New Year holiday that starts on Feb. 4, commission Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
Koo made the remarks after he accompanied Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong (蘇建榮) to the headquarters of state-run Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合庫銀行) in Taipei to learn about its measures to combat money laundering.
Although 90 percent of local banks’ clients pose a low risk of money laundering, bank clerks tend to treat all transactions as suspicious and apply the same measures to everyone, Koo said.
Cash transactions would still be regarded as carrying a higher risk of money laundering, but only transactions of more than NT$500,000 would need to receive increased scrutiny, he said.
For transactions below that threshold, bank staff could judge for themselves whether they need to check a client’s identification, Koo said.
However, they should pay attention to clients who are not making routine transfers or deposits, he added.
For deposits without a passbook, clerks would have to check the identification of clients who plan to deposit more than NT$30,000, unless they know them well, he said.
“We still hope clients will show their identification cards, as banks might not be able to identify clients without a passbook,” Banking Bureau Deputy Director Wang Li-chun (王立群) told a news conference yesterday.
If clients are paying taxes or regulatory fees, they do not need to comply with the anti-money laundering rules, the commission said.
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