Lyndsey Merrill, financial attache to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for the US Department of the Treasury, described the Saudi achievement as a “proud moment” for the country and its leadership RIYADH: The Saudi central bank on Monday launched a national awareness campaign aimed at helping combat financial crime. Ayman Mohammed Al-Sayari, vice governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), announced the initiative in Riyadh during the 11th Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering Seminar organized by Refinitiv, one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data. Speaking at the opening session of the international conference, Al-Sayari said: “In line with our commitment to protect our financial system, we are working diligently and closely with financial institutions to ensure they meet the international standards and also fully execute on our compliance directives and policies. “We are continuously exploring new mechanisms to enhance effectiveness in collaboration with both local government entities and international bodies to exchange expertise and fight financial crime activities,” he added. The gathering of top regional and international regulatory and governance, risk and compliance experts was being staged in association with the Financial Academy and under the auspices of Ahmed Al-Kholifey, SAMA governor and chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering Permanent Committee (AMLPC). Speaking at the seminar, Mohammed Ismail, customer success and proposition sales director at Refinitiv, said: “This year, we celebrated the fifth anniversary of the MENA financial crime report. An analysis of survey responses per country indicates that Know Your Customer (KYC) is the number-one-rated financial crime program. Respondents from all countries had KYC in their top three programs and eight of the 12 rated it as their top program.” Rayan Fayez, managing director and CEO of Banque Saudi Fransi, said: “We do not deal with compliance as a job only, but as a core requirement of our business operations. “We have proactively developed several programs to educate the public and compliance officers about the significance of fighting financial crime, and as a result, we attracted competent compliance managers and also invested in systems and new technologies that enhanced compliance effectiveness. “With the acceleration of banking transactions, we need to build a robust compliance system and protect our financial markets. SAMA proved to be instrumental in carrying out awareness activities that enabled our compliance system to grow stronger,” he added. Adel Al-Qulish, senior adviser to the governor and vice chairman of the AMLPC, said: “We have had several AML laws since 2003. During the past few years, we have been working to fill the gaps in these legacy laws in line with our vision to protect the financial sector and support global efforts in combating financial crime.” On the evaluation process, Al-Qulish noted that members of the assessment team came from different countries. “The team had diverse perspectives and interpretations. We knew the process would not be an easy one and for that reason we started our preparations three years prior to the exercise. “Throughout the exercise, we managed to prove the effectiveness of our system and our capacity to produce solid results,” he added. Mohammed Al-Dughaiyem, consultant and director of the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Investment’s AML/CTF department, said that the evaluation process took seven years. “We overcame the challenges because of our strong leadership. We also reviewed our legacy AML laws and diligently worked on filling the compliance gaps,” he said. Lyndsey Merrill, financial attache to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for the US Department of the Treasury, described the Saudi achievement as a “proud moment” for the country and its leadership. “As other countries preparing for the assessment, it is important and helpful to have a whole government approach and open communications as they embark on this ongoing process,” added Merrill. Naif Alajmi, head of AML/CFT compliance for the Saudi Capital Market Authority, noted that several financial institutions were involved in the assessment process in order to shape a common understanding around risk and compliance. “It is crucial for countries undergoing the assessment exercise to have efficient technologies for data generation. This proved very helpful for us, especially with the time challenges and tight deadlines we had.”