China plans to authorize central bank, branch offices to investigate suspected money flows

China is considering giving the central bank and its subsidiaries more power to track money launderers by allowing the financial institutions to supervise and investigate suspected cases.

An empowerment bill, the draft law of anti-money laundering, is in its third reading of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature.

The law will allow the central bank and its branch offices to monitor and investigate the flow of suspect money and allow them to mete out administrative punishment to employees for allowing the illegal transfer of money.

The move is designed to widen the net to monitor the illicit flow of money to combat money laundering.

Wang Yiming, deputy director of the NPC's Law Committee, suggested the law should be passed. According to China's law-making procedures, a bill is passed into law after it receives three readings by the NPC.

According to the China Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Center, an office under the central bank set up in 2004, 683 suspicious money laundering cases had been reported to the police by the end of 2005. They involved 137.8 billion yuan (17.2 billion U.S. dollars) and over one billion U.S. dollars.

The draft legislation, if adopted, will help facilitate China's application to the world's money policing agency, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Source: Xinhua