Suspicious transactions drop in Macau

The Financial Intelligence Office has revealed that suspicious money laundering and terrorist financing transactions dropped 8.3 per cent year-on-year in 2019.

Macau.- Macau’s gaming operators filed 1913 reports of suspicious transactions to the city’s Financial Intelligence Office last year. The number represents a fall of 8.3 percent year-on-year; in 2018 operators reported 2087 reports.

The Office attributed the decrease to fewer transactions reported by financial or insurance institutions – which saw reports fall 21.5 per cent year-on-year to 880 – and with reports by other entities falling 70.8 per cent to 148.

In October of last year, the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) announced that its report on Macau had been reviewed and approved by all members of the group, with the SAR considered to have made good progress in addressing its anti-money laundering “deficiencies”.

The report indicated that Macau has made good progress in “addressing the technical compliance deficiencies identified in its 2017 mutual evaluation report, including through drafting revised legislation and guidelines”, which in turn has seen it be upgraded on three Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations.