PRESS RELEASE
Speech of Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Albania, Mr. Limos Malaj, held at Anti Money Laundering workshop, Tirana, on June 22, 2005

Dear participant,

In the framework of the measures to combat the money laundering, Bank of Albania in cooperation with FSVC and the Albanian Banks Association organizes the seminar on the topic: Banks and their role in combating money laundering.

It is a common fact that Albania, also assisted by international organization like IMF and EU has made intensive efforts to establish a legal framework, to set up needed structures and bodies, and is still working to train the staff that is to be involved into this matter.

Bank of Albania as the supervisory authority for the banks and non banks financial institutions has highly evaluated this sector due to its significant role in combating money laundering.

Experience has shown that the matter at question constitutes a high social threat, as, the laundered money has its origin from the crime and in most cases, its final destination is the financing of the criminal activities.

Besides, this problem is not limited in time and space. It may have a distant time origin and may be worldwide, at a various size and intensity.

It has been revealed that a strong commitment and cooperation among various factors at home is needed, but on the other hand we should also enhance the cooperation with the authorities in other countries.

We have strengthened our legal framework as well as relevant regulation regards money laundering prevention.

The measures so far, have established clear procedures which help identifying, registering, and reporting the suspicious transactions to the proper authority responsible for their further investigation.

The measures for such prevention have been subject to monitoring and evaluation not only by the national supervising authority, but also by the specialized international institutions.

As mentioned earlier, this process demands deeper measures to be taken by the banking and financial institutions themselves.

I would say that the main challenges to Bank of Albania and the banking system a follow:

Firstly as you may know the Albanian economy still remains cash-based, which provides a more favorable context for money laundering. Efforts have been made to minimize this reality. However, a lot remains to be done.

Secondly the banking network is ever expanding and this requires more efforts to train the staff, so as to fill the gaps and the present shortcomings.

Thirdly the banking system is offering more and more new products, the variety of credit cards to the electronic banking transactions, with the clients not physically appearing at the bank windows.

Considering all the above, the regulations and procedures, will have to reviewed and the staff should be further trained. This is also the scope of this seminar.

I avail myself of the opportunity to thank, once again, the American Agency FSVC for its assistance through providing experts with great experience in the banking business, and particularly in the field of money laundering prevention.

And finally, I would like to thank the speakers, as the most valuable as such activities. Bank of Albania is grateful to them for helping with this seminar.