Bank of France governor Christian Noyer said Friday the euro is here to stay and warned that its disappearance would be an "absolute disaster".

The central bank chief defended the currency as the recession-hit eurozone tried to contain a growing debt crisis, with Greece battling to avert default and Spain pondering a sovereign bailout.

"The future of the euro is absolutely clear cut," Noyer said in a speech to the annual assembly of Spain's Association of Financial Markets in the Spanish capital.

"I have absolutely no doubt that the euro will stay in the long term future," he added. "It is the natural continuation of the European Union, it was in the spirit of the founding fathers."

Noyer said the benefits of the single currency were "perfectly clear".

"People don't realise that if the euro disappears it will be an absolute disaster," he warned.

The French banking chief pressed European powers to set up a banking union as an urgent response to the region's financial crisis.

European leaders agreed in October to establish a regional banking supervisor in 2013, the first step towards a banking union that would allow the European Union to directly help troubled banks.

"We are moving towards a banking union, which was missing in the monetary union," Noyer said. "It is a crucial and urgently needed answer to the crisis," he added.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

Bangladesh Bank is modernising its supervision system to help foil Hall-Mark-like scams, Finance Minister AMA Muhith told parliament yesterday.

Hall-Mark swindled more than Tk 2,600 crore out of state-run Sonali Bank over the last two years.

Lawmakers from both the ruling alliance and the opposition asked Muhith what measures the government has taken to stop recurrence of such forgery in the banking sector.

An experienced banker has already been appointed as fraud risk detection and risk mitigation adviser and started working, Muhith said.

A process was underway to amend the Banking Companies Act, 1991, he said, adding that the amendments, once approved, would put the banking sector in order.

Replying to another query, he said the government had no plan to control or confiscate wealth and money of the Hall-Mark Group.

Lawmaker Salma Islam from Jatiya Party asked Muhith whether the government has taken any measure to carry out an investigation to identify those involved in the Hall-Mark scam.

The minister, in a scripted reply, said cases have been sent to the Anti-Corruption Commission for taking action against those responsible.

The power to buy inland bills has been curtailed at the branch level and the full authority for the job has been given to the banks' head offices, aiming to stop recurrence of forgeries, he added.

“Chief executives of different banks have been warned so that Hall-Mark-like scams do not recur in the baking sector. The bankers' association has also been advised to ensure good governance."

On the waiver of bank interest during the present government, Muhith said the country's eight state banks waived interest worth Tk 4,561 crore of 213,588 loan receivers.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

The central bank will issue a guideline by January to stop suspicious transactions in the stockmarket.

Bangladesh Bank took the decision at a meeting of the National Coordination Committee against money laundering yesterday, with Finance Minister AMA Muhith in the chair.

A finance ministry official said the BB will issue the guideline to meet the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global anti-money laundering body.

The official said the guideline aims to prevent investment of money earned through suspicious transactions or criminal activities in the capital market.

A BB official said the guideline will be prepared on the basis of the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also, in line with the recent amendment to the money laundering act, the stockmarket related institutions will have to report to the central bank's financial intelligence unit on suspicious transaction reports.

The BB official said the guideline will provide direction about how the suspicious transaction reports will be made maintaining the 'Know Your Client' option for opening beneficiary owners' accounts.

Debaprosad Devnath, general manager of Financial Intelligence Unit of the BB, said if the guideline is issued following the directives of the FATF, the foreign investors' confidence in Bangladesh's capital market will increase much.

It will also help attract more foreign investment in the stockmarket, he added.

A BB report submitted at the meeting said Bangladesh has not yet completely met the requirements of the international anti-money laundering body.

If the requirements are not met by January, Bangladesh may be blacklisted.

The meeting also decided that the anti-terrorism act will be amended by February to fulfil the conditions of the FATF.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

Bangladesh Bank aims to introduce a mechanism for faster settlement of funds transferred from one bank to another by 2014, particularly to help businesses get liquidity without any delay, said a senior official yesterday.

The arrangement, termed as Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), is much faster than the present Electronic Fund Transfer Network (EFTN).

"High-value transfer will be done in real-time due to the introduction of the RTGS. It will accelerate the pace of business as liquidity flow will rise," said Dasgupta Asim Kumar, a BB executive director.

"We want to implement it by 2014," he told reporters at the 12th Saarc Payments Council meeting at Sonargaon Hotel in the capital.

Delegates from all Saarc states, except for Afghanistan, attended the meeting to devise strategies to ensure a smoother, safer and faster payment gateway for all, said Dasgupta.

"Another objective is to share experiences of each other," he said.

Central banks of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already established the RTGS system, while the Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan have also made strides in implementing it, said the BB official.

"We are ahead of others in other aspects though," said Dasgupta, adding that the central bank has made progress in establishing the EFTN and an automated clearing house.

He also said the BB would a take service charge on automated cheque clearance and electronic fund transfer from the beginning of next year.

Inaugurating the meeting, Atiur Rahman, the BB governor, said automated clearance and EFTN have greatly facilitated promotion of financial inclusion by way of rapid expansion of mobile phone and smart card-based remote delivery of financial services.

“It has also facilitated cost-effective and speedy transactions,” he said.

The governor said the BB is now working towards a national payments switch to provide a common platform for inter-bank electronic payments originating from different delivery channels including ATMs (automated teller machine), POS (point of sales) terminals, internet, and mobile applications.

"The Saarc Payments Council may consider introducing training visits to payments system installations of other member countries. This may help speed up the eventual cross-border interlinking of electronic fund transfer channels of all member countries."

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

'Know Your Client' (KYC) criteria is set to be made mandatory soon for all share market investors as it is done in the case of bank clients to restrict easy entry of tainted money into the capital market, highly placed sources in the Ministry of Finance(MoF) and Bangladesh Bank(BB) said Saturday.

A clear instruction to this effect will be issued soon by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the BB as the draft of the guideline has recently been okayed by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), they said.

The government has undertaken the initiative to introduce the 'KYC' to meet the requirements of global anti-money laundering watchdogs -- Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Asia Pacific Group (APG) on money laundering, a senior finance official said.

Stock brokers, stock dealers and other capital market intermediaries, under the proposed guidelines, will have to report to the FIU of BB regularly in the event of suspicious transactions in the share market, a BB official said.

"We have to trace suspicious transactions in the share market by introducing reporting system for capital market intermediaries to brighten our image globally," Abu Hena Mohd. Razee Hassan, Deputy Governor, Bangladesh Bank, told the FE on Saturday.

"The country cannot afford to downgrade its status internationally due to loopholes in the enforcement of provisions in the current Anti-money Laundering act," he added.

The flow of investment from both local and foreign sources into the capital market might increase once the guideline is issued, he expressed the hope.

It is now largely believed that local share market is a safe haven for money earned through corruption, bribery and tax evasion. No reporting system or 'KYC' is now mandatory either for individual or institutional investors or brokerage firms.

Besides, the government is actively considering amending the current Anti-terrorism Act to declare a terrorist of any country of the world as a terrorist of Bangladesh and make the local laws on anti-terrorism equally applicable to foreign terrorists.

The FATF and the APG, especially the US, have long been pressing the government of Bangladesh for keeping a provision to this effect in the Anti-terrorism Act, 2012.

News: The Daily Financial Express/Bangladesh/18-Nov-12