The National Bank of Belarus recommends the commercial banks to tight control over operations of individual entrepreneurs when the latter make withdrawals from an account or buy foreign cash.
"We recommend to turn special attention to systematic financial transactions by individual entrepreneurs on withdrawing proceeds in cash, transferring them to an account or using foreign cash if sums of financial operations do not correspond the type of client’s business," the says letter of the National Bank to commercial banks, spread by Interfax news agency.
The National Bank demands that the banks should "inform financial monitoring bodies if the former suspect a financial operation has an aim to legalize proceeds of crime or to finance terroristic activity".
The letter added that the reason for tighter control over financial operations by individual entrepreneurs was information from the State Control Committee on buying significant sums of foreign cash by certain individual entrepreneurs. According to the Committee, a businessman withdrew $1.7mn of foreign cash in 2008, though he didn’t imported goods in Belarus.
According to the State Control Committee, entrepreneurs systematically have been carrying out similar activities in a range of banks in the recent months; the sums transactions amount to from $100,000 to $300,000.
