CMA seeks body membership to fight money laundering

Money laundering is a serious financial crime. FILE PHOTO | NMG  

By PATRICK ALUSHULA

More by this Author

Summary

• CMA has started the process that will see it move from Iosco’s Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU) status to the Enhanced MMoU, which will afford it improved enforcement powers including access to audit working papers and telephone records of errant firms and persons operating within and outside Kenya.

The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is seeking an enhanced membership in the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (Iosco) to access more fraud and intelligence reports involving listed firms and market intermediaries.

It has started the process that will see it move from Iosco’s Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU) status to the Enhanced MMoU, which will afford it improved enforcement powers including access to audit working papers and telephone records of errant firms and persons operating within and outside Kenya.

Director of Regulatory Policy and Strategy at CMA, Luke Ombara said capital markets have undergone sweeping changes driven by technology, and therefore presented fresh challenges that require increased cooperation to rein in errant players.

“There is normally a questionnaire that you must fill. We have done so and still consulting internally and with fellow regulators across the country to put their input. Then it will be presented to Iosco for assessment,” Ombara told the Business Daily.

READ: Anti-money laundering laws expose our financial sector’s soft underbelly

Current CMA’s membership status is limiting since it requires that members sign many bilateral agreements with each other for information sharing to be effected, he said.

This means that a regulator ends up missing intelligence information from another member in the MMoU if the two have not signed a bilateral agreement with each other.

“We are signatories to MMoU but it is limiting. Therefore, by becoming a signatory to the enhanced MMoU, we will be able to get information from any regulator across the globe without the bilateral agreements,” explained Ombara.