Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

In the report 2004, the CSSF wrote that "In 2004, the CSSF dealt with a total of 509 communications related to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.It is interesting to note that 91 of these reports were made following the request of potential clientsto enter into business relations, but to which the professional of the financial sector did not respond favourably due to a suspicion of money laundering or terrorist financing. In this context, it must be stressed that often, either the professional refused to establish business relations for lack of transparent and conclusive information, or even because the documents seemed to be fraudulent or forgeries, or the clients withdrew following the professional’s request for further documents and information. It is obvious that thorough screening measures right from the outset prevent the professional from having to deal with risk clients he had better refused from the beginning. Many reports (44) were also made within the context of combating terrorist financing. This category comprises the communications that have either been transmitted to the CSSF as copies following the circulars issued by the Luxembourg Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), or following the CSSF circulars on financial restrictive measures (freeze of funds) decided at European level. It can be observed that 86 out of the 162 credit institutions registered on the official list as at 31 December 2004 made a communication in 2004. As far as the other professionals of the financial sector (PFS) are concerned, 18 out of the 166 PFS registered on the official list as at 31 December 2004 transmitted a communication to the CSSF. It is striking that the communications of the ten professionals of the financial sector that made more than ten communications each in 2004 – i.e. ten credit institutions – make up alone half of the communications received by the CSSF in 2004 (46%). The reason why some professionals of the financial sector make a large number of reports while
others only a few, even none, can be linked to the activity and the size of the professional, as well as to the number of clients. However, although reports should not be made rashly without the professional having observed a fact that might be an indication of money laundering or terrorist financing in accordance with article 5 paragraph (1) of the law, it is important that the professionals of the financial sector, including in particular PFS, that have not reported any suspicion, or very few, reflect on this situation."

Declarations_of_suspicion_LU.pdf

There is no improvement in 2005. It is said in the report that "in 2005, the CSSF dealt with a total of 487 communications relating to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, which is a slight decrease as compared to 2004 (514 communications) (...) It should be stressed that the professionals that have filed more that ten reports – i.e. twelve banks and one PFS – have become even more diligent as in 2004, as the communications of these professionals represent more than half of the total number of communications received by the CSSF (about 61% in 2005 against 46% in 2004)".

Declarations_of_suspicion_2_LU.pdf



These figures mean actually that only a few professionals are active in AML. Most of them do not care about it, which is probably due to the pragmatic approach to the existing clear law and regulation.