Pakistan To Approach FATF After India Caught In Illicit Financial Activities

US banks have identified 44 Indian banks in connection with the transfer of funds by Indian institutions and individuals in a suspicious activity report (SARs) provided by Indian banks to the Financial Crimes Investigation Network (FinCEN).

The report quoted the Indian Express as saying that according to a set of records of parties with Indian addresses, Indian banks were involved in 2,000 transactions worth more than Rs 1 billion between 2011 and 2017.

Importantly, there are thousands of transactions involving Indian companies and businesses in which the addresses of Indians sending or receiving money were from abroad.

Audit records show that Indian banks included in the SARs include state-owned banks such as Punjab National Bank (290 transactions), State Bank of India (102 transactions), Bank of Broda (93 transactions), Union Bank of India. (99 transactions) and Canara Bank (190 transactions).

Similarly, private Indian banks listed in SARs include HDFC (253 transactions), ICI Bank (57 transactions), Kotak Mahindra Bank (268 transactions), Axis Bank (41 transactions) and Indus & Bank (117 transactions). ) Included.

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According to the newspaper, foreign banks filing suspicious activity reports include Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas (DBICA), BNY Mellon, Citibank, Standard Chartered and JPMorgan Chase.

The reason for the presence of Indian banks in SARs is that they are the ‘representative banks’ of the foreign banks that have filed these SARs and figures in the network through which the transactions were effected.

The report said records show that there were cases where “suspicious transactions” were made through foreign payment gateways of foreign banks.

Elsewhere, overseas branches of Indian banks, such as the State Bank of India account in Canada and a Union Bank of India account in the UK, were used by clients for the transaction in question.

The most important of these is banking, an arrangement on which regulators’ actions against the privacy of foreign transactions are raising concerns.

Under this arrangement, a bank (representative) keeps deposits with other banks (parties) and provides payment and other services to these banks.

Through representative banking, banks can access financial services in a variety of jurisdictions and provide cross-border payment services to their customers.

According to the sources, Pakistan will approach FATF and take India to task for its suspicious transactions and illicit money games.