11 Aug 2024

The private sector has its own limitations to effectively trace, investigate and prosecute acts of financial crime.

As such the public and private partnership in combatting financial crime in Botswana, will foster more engagement with law enforcement agencies and officials to assist in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

 A representative from the private sector and Standard Chattered Botswana Chief Compliance Officer, Ms Shathani Molefe said recently during the launch of the Public and Private Partnership in combatting Financial Crime in Botswana.

She said the private sector was limited due to the lack of engagement or sharing of information across sectors.

In addition, she said the private sector did not have the right level of intelligence from law enforcement to support their daily financial crime detection practices.

 Ms Molefe said private sector entities who are the gatekeepers for the integrity of the financial system, were at times not privy to the hot spots, or certain events that threaten the nation’s financial sector and the economy.

 Therefore, she said, partnerships between the public and private sector were important especially when transactions were conducted digitally, 24hours a day, seven days a week.

“With such speed itransactions, we too must establish ways to expedite our collaboration to engage on financial crime threats based on shared and agreed objectives, and priorities,” Ms Molefe stated.

She said the use of the public and private partnership would result in collaborative strategic intelligence sharing, which builds understanding of threats and risks.

 Ms Molefe said the collaboration would help both sectors develop a shared understanding of the threats, priorities, and mitigations of criminal activity.

Also, it would aid both private and public sectors to direct resources to priority areas in financial crime risks and strengthen financial systems and controls among others.

The participants in the public and private partnership in combatting financial crime included commercial banks and law enforcement agencies, money or value transfer services and financial intelligence units.

The launch preceded the signing of an agreement to facilitate sharing of intelligence information. ENDs