Wednesday, June 15, 2022, marked the successful completion of the 4th International Conference on Prevention of Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism.
The purpose of the event was to raise awareness of the impact of the new restrictive measures, by sharing the effects and experiences of the region on AML and CFT efforts by governments and the private sector, trends in global financial regulation and the link between compliance.
The conference was opened by Slavica Grkovska, Deputy President of the Government in charge of good governance policies, who joined from Estonia:
“I want to thank you for the opportunity to address this conference on preventing money laundering and terrorist financing, issues that are extremely important, where we all need to work together. As a key precondition for a successful fight on the topic, I would like to emphasize that it is the digital transformation of the society that we are working intensively on, with the support and cooperation of the Estonian Digitalization Center and the USA, where this memorandum was signed between the Estonian Center, USA and our Government, and it provides a basis for fairly intensive activities to improve the processes of digital transformation.” – said Grkovska.
Through three panel discussions, participants were given the opportunity to learn about best international practices in accordance with local requirements, identify high-risk clients, and properly monitor and detect suspicious transactions.
The first panel – “NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND THE FIGHT AGAINST MONEY LAUNDERING”, moderated by Ljubica Pendaroska, cyber security expert, included speakers: Aleksandar Vujic, Financial Intelligence Office of R.N. Macedonia, Dijana Rikalovska, CAMS, AML and Compliance Department at Sparkasse Bank AD Skopje and Dushko Goshevski, Consultant, lawyer and commissioner at the Security Exchange Commission. Encryption and the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing were covered and Recommendation 15 – new FATF technologies: regulation, law, news and protection.
Here, Pendaroska highlighted: “New technologies are very important and inextricably linked to the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. At the panel we tried to answer the question: How to provide protection in conditions when we are constantly exposed to different types of risks through new technologies and new currencies?”
The second and third panels were moderated by Iskra Ivanovska Stojanovska from the National Bank of the R.N. Macedonia. On the topic: ” UN AND EU SANCTIONS LISTS”, the discussions were led by the speakers: Goce Trajkovski (also from NBRM), Ivica Simonovski (Financial Intelligence Unit), Svetlana Nikoloska, (Faculty for Security – Skopje) and Dafinka Kijevska (Head of the Financial Investigation Unit, Customs Administration).
Panel 3 covered the FATF RECOMMENDATIONS 24 and 25: “Transparency and useful property of legal entities and legal arrangements and a new law on the origin of property”, where spoke: Gligor Pandilovski (Stopanska Banka AD Skopje), Marijana Naumovska (Deputy Head of Department at Central Register of R.N. Macedonia), Dragana Bikovska (Advisor at the Deputy President of the Government in charge of good governance policies) and Ilina Garevska Ilievska (Senior Project Officer, Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (CAMS) at Council of Europe)
At the end, Ivanovska Stojanovska from the NBRM said: “I hope that we will have many more such conferences, which are needed because the matter itself regarding AML and CFT requires continuous monitoring of frequent changes, where there is a need for discussion and debate.”
The conference was attended by experts in the fields of governance, law, economics, new technologies, cyber security and education. Online, it gathered about 70 participants from all institutions, such as banks, insurance companies, private and public companies and organizations, and all stakeholders who work or want to work in compliance.
This concluded the 4th International anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism conference, organized by the first Macedonian Banking Academy – ABIT and the German Institute HEIDELBERG in Skopje. At the closing of the conference, the upcoming 5th International Controlling Conference was announced, scheduled for June 28, on the topic: “Challenges in controlling: Sustainability | New business models| Transformation | Crisis.”
