4th Financial Crime Summit held: Alvi exhorts stakeholders to make joint efforts for easing financial crisis

KARACHI: President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi has said that all the stakeholders needed to display cooperation and unity and make strong efforts in order to steer the country out of the present financial situation.

While, addressing the 4th Annual Financial Crime Summit on Saturday in Karachi, the president said that we had not learnt from the past and other countries had outpaced Pakistan in terms of economic development.

He said that political cooperation was needed to overcome the present financial situation and expressed support for the government’s idea of conserving energy by shutting down the markets in the evenings.

“Pilferage and corruption had crippled Pakistan and we were now reliant upon aid and loans,” he said and added that corruption was prevalent across the world and was not just the problem of developing countries and needed to be curbed by eliminating loopholes from financial laws and systems.

Alvi also said that the need of the hour is for the financial sector to adopt the latest technologies to avoid the risk of financial crimes. With effective collaborations between various stakeholders, data sharing protocols can enable us to ensure sustainability and progress in the times to come, he added.

The 4th Annual Financial Crime Summit was held on Saturday with the theme “Post-FATF Financial Crime Action Plan-Continuing the National Anti-Financial Crime Agenda.”

The summit was organized by Dellsons Conferences under the banner of Dellsons Associates, together with its Knowledge Partner, A.F. Ferguson & Co (a member firm of the PwC network).

Key highlights of the summit included a number of speeches, presentations and panel discussions including from Presidents and CEOs of banks and non-bank institutions, chief compliance officers of banks and key regulatory authorities and LEAs.

On the occasion, Ibrahim Amin, Chairman of Dellsons said that this summit was the need of the hour, especially with Pakistan exiting the FATF grey list in recent months.

“As a nation we have to ensure that the commitments made to FATF are strictly met and there is a robust post-FATF Financial Crime Action Plan in place, so that Pakistan never again risks being placed on the grey list,” he added.

Syed Faraz Anwer, Partner Consulting, A. F. Ferguson & Co, while speaking at the conference mentioned that Pakistan is out of the FATF grey list due to concerted efforts of all the concerned stakeholders but the fight against financial crimes doesn’t end here. Sustainability is now key in continuing our alignment with global standards and best practices to ensure that Pakistan doesn’t get back into the grey list, he added.

The summit also included presentation from Syed Faraz Anwer, on the results of the financial crime survey held by the firm in 2022, as well as from few international speakers from consulting, academia and fintech backgrounds.

The summit was attended by more than 400 people from across various sectors and included representatives from regulatory authorities, law enforcement agencies, banks and financial institutions, academia, media and others.

In addition, the pre-lunch session of the summit featured speech by Guest of Honor Salim Raza, former governor SBP and member Board of Directors, HBL, speech by Guest of Honor Kazi Rahat Ali, Secretary General, Pakistan Freelancers Association (PAFLA), and keynote speech by Nadeem Hussain, Chairman, Planet N Group.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023