The Anti- Money laundering drive within the Financial Market in Malawi is now receiving united and coordinated efforts from all players to try and join forces to defeat a common enemy. Gone are the days when fraudsters used to sample the procedures of individual banks to pick on the one that is less detailed in digging into the history and character of the would-be-customer. Soon banks will be using a standardized Account opening form that will be uniform in terms of information required before an account is opened. The move will also eliminate unfair competition as in cases where a particular institution would deliberately choose to use a less detailed account opening form to woo new customers. This is one avenue that gives chance to laundered money to find its way into the banking system. The costs and repercussions are far more disastrous than not having those accounts in the first place.

What is crucial however is the day to day monitoring of how customers are conducting their accounts. There is no specific formula apart from knowing what the customer’s daily living comes from and whether the level of activity on the account is in line with what one would expect in the particular industry in which they are operating. In fact when things are not going in the right direction, someone somewhere has a clue. As for banks, almost 85% of the frauds, forgeries and money laundering happen in the knowledge of some insiders.

The only problem being that such information is known to the wrong people i.e. those who are not ready to disclose probably because they think it is none of their business or are directly or indirectly benefiting from such malpractices. This, to say the least is bad attitude because the resources which are being drained are indirectly depriving growth prospects to the entire economy. The growth of a country starts with the growth of individual firms.

In the UK they have what is called the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 which was purposely enacted to encourage workers to disclose information on suspected wrong-doing through appropriate channels. With the passage of time this has been generally referred to as ‘Whistle blowing’ simply because the informant is alerting those responsible to take position and do their job. The second reason was to protect those who disclose such information from being taken to task or being victimized by their masters as a result of the disclosure. Some Employers can be so ungrateful and will take to task an innocent person who thought was providing information to save the organization from plunder as a disgruntled accomplice. The Act addressed this problem so that any information provided is treated as classified information only to be used for purposes of pursuing investigations without reversion to the provider of such tips.

In our case even in the absence of a specific Act, banks can introduce in-house policies to reward those who report or warn management of any fraud/brewing fraud by fellow members of staff or staff in corroboration with outsiders as a way of motivating them not to simply watch when some damage is taking place. Such rewards can be predetermined amounts or better still as percentages of the amounts which would have been lost if it were not for the disclosure. Management on the other hand must realize the need to keep the identity of those giving such information confidential as this can also be a deterrent. Everyone wants to keep away from trouble and fraudsters are in a serious business of their own, never to be undermined.