Finland Times

 

File Photo Lehtikuva.

Banks have hired more staff to watch against money laundering. 

 

The technical systems of monitoring have also been further developed, according to the Federation of Finnish Financial Services (FFI). 

 

This partly explains the increase in the number of money laundering reports made by banks. Another explanatory factor may also be public pressure.

 

“At the same time, as the financial intelligence centre will try to keep the notification threshold as low as possible, the data protection supervisor has expressed concern on whether the threshold for money laundering notifications is already too low,” said FFI leading expert Mika Linna.

 

“With the increase in notifications, we just want to be accurate with these matters,” said Linna.

 

OP Group’s Money Laundering Prevention Team Manager Jani Samuli said even though he cannot accurately comment on the bank’s policies or resources, they are employing more and more staff.

 

“In addition [to staff], the development of technology has been enormous. The tech is virtually automatic, which trips an alarm if there are any particularly unusual client transactions,” said Samuli.

 

Money laundering reports are made, according to him, always on the basis of discretion, and cases are handled individually.