Jan.12, 2010

Central Bank vice governor Haroutiun Samuelian said on Monday that Lebanon will continue its efforts to protect the banking sector from the risk of bad reputations and will continue to crack down on money laundering and terrorism finance. Samuelian made these remarks during a training work shop at the Basil Fuleihan Institute on combating financial crimes in Lebanon.

“Lebanon always strives to be in line with developments and progress to preserve its reputation as a regional financial and banking center,” the vice governor said.

He added that Lebanon has adopted a series of measures to campaign against the spread of money laundering.

“Among these measures were a special legislation on combating money laundering in 2001 and Lebanon was the first Arab country to pass such a law,” Samuelian said.

He added that the Central Bank gave the issue of money laundering the utmost importance in an attempt to protect the banking sector’s reputation.

Samuelian stressed that Lebanese banks and financial institutions are requested to examine all foreign banks that they deal with to ensure that they are not just shell banks, set up by criminals to turn their illicit gains into legal profit.

 “The banks have also been asked to investigate their permanent and temporary clients in order to make sure that they have clear records,” he said.

Samuelian added that banks are also urged to check the source of clients’ deposits.

“At a time when Lebanon’s customer deposits have reached three times the size of the country’s GDP, these banks are focusing on the protection of this sector from any unforeseen risk,” he said.

Samuelian also underlined the importance of increasing the campaign against terrorism funding “because the country was subjected in the past to terrorist activities that threatened its security and stability.”

Lebanon is one of the few countries in the world with a banking secrecy law.

This secrecy law has put Lebanon under lot of pressures from the West to tighten rules in an effort prevent any possible money laundering activity.