NCJ Number
226086
Date Published
September 2008
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This paper addresses the nature of the risks posed by the emergence of plastic cards with the capacity to store monetary value electronically, which can be used by criminals to move funds across borders in order to circumvent reporting and detection systems, with attention to whether Australia’s existing regulatory measures are adequate to address this risk.
Abstract
In order to reduce the money laundering risk posed by prepaid stored value cards (SVCs), SVC providers must be made aware of and comply with local regulatory requirements. Compliance with these measures, however, can be challenging and expensive for SVC providers. The problem of customer verification, for example, is hampered by the prevalence of electronic contacts that do not require customer identity verification at distribution outlets. Regarding customer identification at point of purchase or where value is reloaded onto SVCs, major banks and financial institutions use technologies for detecting forged identification documents and conduct enhanced customer due diligence for cardholders who reload SVCs frequently, have cash access, and or use their cards outside Australia. Regarding the monitoring of SVC usage and detecting suspicious patterns of high-risk situations, real-time transaction monitoring with technologies is used. There are no reporting obligations in relation to the mailing or shipping of SVCs out of Australia, however. Illicit proceeds could be smuggled out of Australia without regulators being aware. To date, few reliable data have been collected on this kind of risk. There should be a further analysis of the SVC industry in order to determine possible ways in which the industry could be better regulated to prevent its abuse by money launderers. 1 table and 22 references