The Malaysian Insight

HALVING the daily cash threshold report (CTR) to RM25,000 has provided Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) with a significant increase in CTRs, pointing to potentially suspicious transactions, said the governor of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus.

In January, the central bank lowered the daily CTR threshold from RM50,000 to RM25,000.

As of September, more than 5 million CTR reports were received, representing about RM483 billion in cash transactions.

“It is still too early to draw any concrete conclusions, but what we have observed across the industry is the total value of cash transactions reported has increased marginally, while the number of CTRs received have nearly doubled,” she said.

“The significant increase in CTRs received since January provides us important data points that enable more rigorous monitoring of peculiarities in cash transactions and identification of money laundering or terrorism financing risks on newly identified entities that have not been captured previously,” she added.

She said additional insights will also lead to better quality disclosures to relevant law enforcement agencies especially in relation to fraud, tax evasion and corruption crimes.

Shamsiah said the regulatory and law enforcement communities are mulling introducing cash transaction limits (CTL), to complement the existing financial integrity measures.

She said, although this maybe new to Malaysia, other countries such as France, Italy and India already have limits.

“This measure will further mitigate the abuse of cash by addressing the ease of conducting high-value cash transactions.

“Even with the rise of electronic payments, we cannot wash over the fact that criminals still prefer cash because it is widely accepted, anonymous in nature and untraceable,” she added.

On that note, the National Co-ordination Committee (NCC) to Counter Money Laundering will propose a public consultation later this month. – November 5, 2019.