benjamin e diokno : fighting money laundering and terrorism financing speech by mr benjamin e diokno, governor of bangko sentral ng pilipinas ( bsp, the central bank of the philippines ), at the anti - money laundering council's 19th anniversary, 20 october 2020. * * * ladies and gentlemen of the amlc secretariat. good afternoon to everyone. i am delighted to be with you today on the occasion of the 19th anniversary of the amlc. this year, we celebrate under unprecedented circumstances. not only are we allies in fighting money laundering and terrorism financing, but, along with the rest of the world, we are fighting an invisible but deadly virus. the covid - 19 pandemic has caused us grief and fear, both as individuals and as a nation. but it has also compelled us to address our weaknesses and to shift our assumptions and biases toward fresh, if not better, possibilities. though the pandemic has brought the world to a slowdown and even to a halt, during the first few months, the amlc soldiered on against money laundering and terrorism financing. and we have the following milestones to show for it. first — as the pandemic has presented an opportunity for money launderers and other criminals — the amlc initiated and conducted an analysis of the financial crime landscape, covering a period of the pandemic and using suspicious transaction reports ( strs ) submitted by covered persons. the amlc ’ s “ covid - 19 financial crime trend analysis and typologies brief ” has since been disseminated to supervising agencies, appropriate government agencies, law enforcement agencies, several financial intelligence units, and public - private partnership program partners. the report has also been shared with the asia pacific group on money laundering and the financial action task force ( fatf ) ; and a redacted version has been made available online. an update of the study, which expands the data set, will soon be released as well. it is interesting to note that one of the top reasons for str filing, based on the study, are associated with violations of the anti - child pornography act of 2009. child exploitation - related strs increased in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. this increase may be primarily due to the amlc ’ s 2019 study on online child sexual abuse and exploitation ( csae ). the amlc ’ s supplemental study on the online sexual exploitation of children observes that its 2019 study on csa

necessary liquidity so as to ensure the functioning of the greek banking system and the continuation of lending to businesses and households. this was in line with the principle by which the eurosystem may lend to banks which are solvent and have sufficient collateral. the authority competent in this matter, the european supervisor, deemed that the banks were solvent. but clearly their solvency, like the availability of sufficient collateral, depended crucially on the prospects for success of the programme negotiations that were underway : if they failed, the value of the greek government securities would have fallen, impairing the solvency of the banks and the quality of their collateral, excluding them from financing by the eurosystem. the governing council thus found itself having to judge the prospects of success of these negotiations. two extreme options were put forward. the governing council could immediately have considered a positive outcome as improbable, it could have objected to further extensions of ela or even, as some were demanding, asked for the liquidity granted to be reimbursed, thus causing the whole of the greek banking system to fail. or, as some have subsequently argued, the governing council could have allowed the supply of liquidity assistance, in unlimited amounts, even in the event of the talks with the greek government failing. as you will remember, our decision was controversial, but it was the right one. we granted ela for as long as it was deemed that there were conditions favourable for a positive outcome to the negotiations. its expansion was suspended when it appeared these conditions were no longer confirmed. ela was then resumed when it was clear that the prospects for a positive solution were restored. looking back at these months just past, we can see that it is not only the actual course of events that proved this to be the right decision. we chose the only path compatible with the statute and the treaty, the only path that would have preserved the integrity of the currency. other possible paths would have infringed the principle whereby the ecb must lend only to solvent banks, and only if the collateral is adequate – and those paths would probably have destroyed the integrity of the currency. similarly, the ending of ela would most likely have started a process that would have resulted in greece exiting the euro area, thereby negating the irrevocability of the euro envisaged by the treaty. and this would have happened not as a result of a new decision, reached democratically, by the signatory countries of the