Philippines SEC ties with Pagcor to fight money laundering

Mar 27, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Philippines, Top of the deck  

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The Philippines’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced a data-sharing agreement with several governmental agencies, including the country’s gaming regulator, as part of efforts to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

The arrangement signed with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor) covers the sharing of information on beneficial owners of companies and other regulated entities, according to a press release issued last week by the SEC.

The stock market supervisory body has clinched similar agreements the Philippine National Police, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

The SEC will give the respective agencies “timely access to accurate and adequate beneficial ownership information”, in line with the recommendations of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering watchdog, according to the statement.

The SEC gathers information that it says “plays a vital role” in identifying the person “maintaining ultimate effective control” of a corporation, as beneficial owners “are distinguished from legal owners”.

In February, a regular update from the FATF said it was keeping the Philippines on its so-called ‘grey list’. The body said while the country had “continued progress across its action plan,” all current deadlines on progress had “now expired and work remains”.

Such required work included “demonstrating that supervisors are using anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism controls to mitigate risks associated with casino junkets”.

In January, the governor of the Philippine central bank was quoted saying his country had been given a year extension – until January 2024 – to meet the financial standards needed to get off the FATF risk list.

In a report published earlier this year, the Philippines’ Anti-Money Laundering Council stated that AML controls in the nation’s casino sector needed to be strengthened. The body pointed the finger at the junket system, highlighting its “inherent vulnerability” to money-laundering and terrorism-financing risks.

Pagcor is an operator of publicly-owned casinos as well as the regulator for the Philippines’ entire casino industry, which includes privately-developed venues.

The head of the country’s gaming regulator, Alejandro Tengco, said last week that Pagcor was “seriously considering” splitting its regulatory and operating functions, aiming to raise circa PHP80 billion (US$1.47 billion) from the sale of its network of small, state-owned casinos.

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