implement such directives related to aml / cft. ( for instance, the financial penalty that normally applies for noncompliance ranges from one to fifty million rupees. ) ladies and gentlemen, 5. money laundering can take different forms, and is not limited to tax evasion, cybercrime, identity fraud, phishing, card fraud, skimming, advance fee scams, fund transfer schemes, fake prizes, international lottery fraud, wills and legacies and loan fraud and international transfers etc. the technologies adopted by bfis are making them increasingly vulnerable to various risks in money laundering. generally, vulnerability to money laundering is greater when there is inadequate internal control system, poor risk management practices, weak good governance, inadequate board and senior management oversight, inadequate policy, procedure and monitoring the functional activities and breach of contract and trust etc. although the banking system is stringent in know your customer ( kyc ), it is not sufficient as expected to identify the beneficial owner and to apply the risk based approach. nrb has observed that money laundering is largely the result of weak internal control and poor risk management and practices of the respective banks. this highlights the need of efficient internal audit, strong internal control system and better risk management practices within the bfis in addition to compliance to regulation and supervision for prevention, control and detection of financial crime. 6. bfis must adopt strategic approach and also comply with the kyc regulations based on risk based approach, real time transaction monitoring and transaction analysis for prevention and timely detection of financial crimes. the board and senior management of bfis should be proactive in understanding the potential risks and also put in place a crime prevention, control and detection mechanism. they should have a deep understanding of the institution ’ s strengths and weaknesses and be able to move their respective bfi in right direction. the prevention and corrective measures should also be a key concern to minimize the impact of financial loss that impact our economy. ladies and gentlemen, 7. nepal has established legal and institutional foundation to comply with aml / cft standards. the whole of the legal and organizational framework of aml / cft revolves around fatf's 40 recommendations. in that regard, nrb has been extensively working to strengthen its legal and organizational framework. in this regime bfis can play a very important role, not just because launderers have been abusing the financial system but also because as victim of such crimes, they are always at various risks such as legal,

regulatory, concentration and reputational. 8. in the case of nepal stakeholders including the nrb and fiu - nepal, have been proactively working to implement the preventive measures of financial crime, so as to investigate and disseminate the cases of money laundering and terrorist financing ( ml / tf ) to law enforcement agencies ( leas ). fiu - nepal received 45, 93, 5817 ttrs'and 887 str's in fy 2017 / 18 and out of the total strs'that has been received ; almost 312 were disseminated to the leas. i hope that fiu - nepal and leas will continue to coordinate to further investigate the cases for prosecution and convictions. i understand that fiu - nepal has already installed the goaml system for strengthening the receiving, reporting and dissemination mechanism of information and reports from commercial banks and is now reporting under the test environment. i am confident banks will soon move to live environment of goaml in reporting of str and ttr to fiunepal. 9. hence, leadership of government of nepal and joint and coordinate efforts among the regulators, bfis, leas, fiu, civil society and support agencies such as isp, telecommunication companies, vendors, etc. including with the public private partnership can play an important role to control the financial crime and help to maintain the financial stability in country. ladies and gentlemen, 10. at last, but not least, i would convey my best wishes that the conference will be successful and reach a concrete conclusion about the implementation of robust mechanism of aml compliance. in addition to this, i believe that, this program will able to help improve your knowledge on the risks associated with of ml / tf. it will also help to further continue discussions on plan of action to help prepare for the upcoming mutual evaluation scheduled in 2020. 11. with this note, let me close my remarks by congratulating and thank you all for your gracious presence and attention. thank you.