Expert’s warning of new forms of financial crime fraud

The program took place on May 30, 2024 in Hanoi with the attending of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son - Director of Training Center of VNBA; Mr. Tyler Pederson, APAC Regional Director of Financial Crime Risk, Corporate and Investment Banking (Wells Fargo Bank N.A); Mr. Hiten Shah, APAC Senior Expert on Financial Crime Risk, Corporate and Investment Banking (Wells Fargo Bank N.A); Mr. Sudhakar Aduri, APAC Senior Expert on Sanctions and Anti-Corruption (Wells Fargo Bank N.A); Ms. Kelly Chng, Head of Global Payment Services, Southeast Asia (Wells Fargo Bank N.A).

Speaking at the opening session, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son said that recently, the domestic and international economic, political and social context has had many fluctuations, posing many challenges in terms of financial compliance risks. At the same time, many new types of financial crimes have emerged. Therefore, commercial banks need to promote digital transformation to bring better services to customers.

However, financial crimes is increasing alongside, leading to the risk of financial institutions being exploited. Therefore, the urgency of anti-money laundering and prevention of financial crimes must always be put first.

Vietnam has been recognized by the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) for positive changes in the legal framework on anti-money laundering such as recent issuance of the Law on Anti-Money Laundering 2022 issued; the Decree No. 19/2023/ND-CP dated April 28, 2023 of the Government detailing several articles of the Law on Anti-Money Laundering; Decision No. 11/2023/QD-TTg dated April 27, 2023 of the Prime Minister stipulating the level of large-value transactions that must be reported and Circular No. 09/2023/TT-NHNN dated July 28, 2023 of the Governor of the State Bank guiding the implementation of several articles of the Law on Anti-Money Laundering.

In addition, banks need to proactively research, stimulus IT application, data transformation to support the authentication of customer/bank account holder information; to promote communication, to raise customer awareness in registering to open and use banking accounts.

Currently, most banks have established a specialized department for anti-money laundering. The interest of bank management in this issue is growing, the scale of development of specialized departments is increasing. Based on international practices, the anti-money laundering system of banks is increasing its determination to change and be proactive even before regulations are issued. In addition, strengthening eKYC security and strengthening connections with the Ministry of Public Security is extremely necessary. The Ministry of Public Security and the State Bank of Vietnam have issued an implementation plan that should be rapidly implemented soon.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Son emphasized that the workshop is a good opportunity for managers and experts of Vietnamese banks and Wells Fargo Bank (USA) to exchange experiences, to share, and update information related to the situation of financial crimes as well as new trends and risks recently emerging related to money laundering and organized fraud in the financial - banking sector. In addition, experts will also share about the risks and dangers of embargoes in the complicated changing world that could affects Vietnam very much.

At the training session, Ms. Trinh Hoang Linh, Head of Wells Fargo N.A. Representative Office in Hanoi, expressed her joy at the support of the State Bank of Vietnam and VNBA and the opportunity to co-organize a workshop with urgent content, sharing with partners and the banking system in Vietnam. She highly appreciated the close and strict direction of the Anti-Money Laundering Department (SBV) and was impressed with the changes and developments of the Vietnamese banking system regarding financial crimes and sanctions.

Experts from Wells Fargo Bank presented the following contents: Financial Crime - Emerging trends and risks - Update on the sanctions of OFAC (Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury); Organized fraud (Pig Butchering) - Overview on suspicious signs; Global perspective on increasing sanctions risks; Global payment trends.

Some forms of financial crimes have also been pointed out by experts, in which the most prominent is "Fattening to slaughter". Financial criminals often build a detailed scenario over a long period of time to approach the victim under the name of building a close relationship, taking advantage of trust and becoming close friends with the victim, then enticing the victim to transfer money into the account. This form of fraud was officially reported in 2019 in China, then widely developed in many other places, through different methods or through social networking platforms.

At the workshop, representatives of Vietnamese banks and experts had discussions around content such as measures to support banks in looking up software, checking in the fastest way during the process of implementing payment orders or OFAC sanctions...

VNBA News