Mainland, Macau ink pact to fight money laundering

The central bank said it has signed a pact with the financial regulators of Macau on anti-money laundering cooperation.
A memorandum of understanding to “prevent money laundering and terrorist financing activities” was signed with the Monetary Authority (AMCM), according to a statement on the website of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). Both sides will strengthen information sharing, personnel exchanges and training, as well as cooperation on inspections, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported late on Friday.
No specific measures were outlined in the statement. The PBOC said the agreement is of “great significance” as it will promote Beijing-Macau cooperation and improve the implementation of suggestions by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global anti-money laundering body.
According to yesterday’s Sunday Morning Post, “the lack of detail and the fact that there was no parallel announcement by the Macau Monetary Authority or the city’s anti-money laundering unit has prompted concern over what the deal could mean for the autonomy of China’s only other Special Administrative Region.”
Sources quoted by the paper fear similar moves might be considered for Hong Kong. One finance industry insider told the Sunday Morning Post: “Although we don’t have all the details, taken in the context of what has gone on over the past year or so, the problem here seems not to be about taking away power from Macau bodies but rather giving the Chinese authorities unhindered access to information.”
A lawyer in Macau also raised concerns over the legitimacy of the handing over “sensitive personal information” by the Monetary Authority to the Chinese central bank. “For starters, the AMCM is the entity that gathers information from the banks and other financial operators and regulates the sector; it’s not in its attributes the handing over of personal, banking accounts, information,” Sérgio de Almeida Correia told the Times yesterday.
“It’s important to know more details about the MoU. For instance, if it applies to residents and/or non-residents.” In Mr Correia’s opinion AMCM cannot hand over residents’ personal data to an alien entity without the “authorization of the MSAR government, namely the Office for Personal Data Protection, and even the Legislative Assembly.”
The lawyer also found “strange” the fact that the pact was unilaterally disclosed by the PBOC and “not simultaneously by the two parties, as is usual in these cases.”
“On the other hand, one should ask the Monetary Authority if they are signing pacts of this nature with other jurisdictions’ counterparts, like, for example, the Federal Reserve in the U.S. giving [information about] the American gaming operations here,” Sérgio Correia said. PC