Chief executive officers of banks have critical roles to play in assisting the Financial Action Task Force to delist Nigeria from its record of non co-operative countries, the Managing Director, Keystone Bank, Mr. Philip Ikeazor, has said.

Ikeazor, who spoke at a recent monthly meeting of the Committee of Chief Compliance Officers in Nigeria held in Lagos, advised his colleagues to provide adequate resources and empowerment for the compliance officers to ensure that Nigeria’s anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism risks are well managed.

The Keystone boss, who was represented by the bank’s Executive Director, Operations and Technology, Mr. Ademola Adewale, called for the support of banks management in the implementation of AML/CFT measures, especially in tackling the deficiencies identified by FATF.

FATF had listed non-implementation of procedures to identify and freeze terrorist assets and failure to ensure that customer due diligence requirements applied to all financial transactions as areas Nigeria needed to address in order to remove its name from the high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions list.

It also said there was the need to protect bank officers involved in driving the implementation of the money laundering laws and regulations as well as institution of penalties against non-compliant workers.

Source: Punch