zamani abdul ghani : strenthening vigilance during turbulent times keynote address by mr zamani abdul ghani, deputy governor of the central bank of malaysia, at the international financial crime and terrorism financing conference 2009, kuala lumpur, 16 april 2009. * * * it is a pleasure to welcome all of you to this conference in particular, and to malaysia and kuala lumpur as well. today marks the inaugural of an international conference on financial crimes and terrorism financing, organized by the compliance officers networking group in malaysia, or cong in short. let me take this opportunity, first of all, to thank the members of the organising committee. this committee comprises of staff of members of the institute of bankers malaysia, the securities industry development centre, ( sidc ), and the malaysian institute of insurance, as well as staff of the anti - money laundering unit of the royal malaysia police. members of the cong, deserve a special commendation for the efforts taken to conceptualise and make this conference a reality. despite being the first conference of its kind to be organized in malaysia, and the challenges encountered while organising this conference, we see today a room filled to capacity. i have the honour of being the chairman of malaysia's national coordination committee to counter money laundering or the ncc, which comprised of 15 government ministries and agencies. on behalf of the ncc, i would also like to say " tahniah " or congratulations to the cong and the co - organisers. indeed, the spirit of " acting for greater good " is clearly manifested by all those who are involved in the organisation of this conference. we are also very pleased in having participants as well as experts and resource persons of multilateral agencies from as many as 12 different countries. the attendance of so many participants and experts from the domestic and the international community for this conference speaks volumes for the importance of this subject and the universal relevance of the issues to be deliberated in this conference. i would like to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the speakers and moderators who had make their way to kuala lumpur from all around the globe ; it is indeed an honour to have all of you here to speak at this important conference. our thanks to those international multilateral institutions in working with longestablished domestic and regional organisations in participating or organising regional conferences on topical issues. on a few occasion, we have observed some multilateral institutions upstaging these regional bodies. this is not beneficial nor the right thing to do. it is better

platform and other use of internet technologies for money laundering activities are on the rise. new technologies are also being used to perpetrate crimes such as dealing in illegal drugs over the internet and e - crimes, including phishing and internet auction frauds ; 3. there are also instances on the use of dummies, or an international network of shell companies as well as other intermediaries to handle the transactions ; and 4. the use of electronic fund transfers as one of the preferred methods for the layering of criminal proceeds once they enter the legitimate financial system. there are cases where these proceeds are smuggled out of one country, deposited in another country or other countries, and then wired back to the country of origin. iii. strategic focus to strengthen the national aml / cft regime as the challenges to address the emerging trends intensify, it becomes imperative that the overarching objective upon which an aml / cft regime has been built remains intact and achievable. the key is to sustain the robustness of the aml / cft regime to effectively deter and detect money laundering and terrorism financing offences. thus the third and the last theme of my speech is on malaysia's strategic focus in strengthening the national aml / cft regime. against this backdrop, five key areas has been identified. first is to strengthen collaboration and cooperation among key stakeholders. foremost is to enhance the public - private sector partnership as synchronised actions deliver better result. the move to increase the resources for money laundering and terrorism financing investigations by the domestic law enforcement agencies, which currently is the emerging trend, needs to be supported with swift actions from the fiu and prompt response from reporting institutions. another is that, at the international level, malaysia will continue to enhance multilateral and bilateral relationships. i am happy to inform that we have recently concluded an mou with the national bank of cambodia, bringing the total number of mous signed to 18. we have and will continue to provide assistance to countries in the asia / pacific region. second is to provide greater focus in enhancing the competency and capacity of key stakeholders, i. e., the analysts, law enforcement officers and compliance officers. despite the unfavourable economic condition, human resources and capacity building remain as one of our top focus. we plan to roll out capacity building programmes for analysts and enforcement officers covering fundamental, intermediate and advance level training programmes. the certified financial investigators programme, or cfip, i.