Money laundering

[Leftie]

Does anyone know the trigger point at which banks tell NCIS about the movement of money? I used to think it was £10,000 but that seems low these days.

I am swapping banks at the moment and the best interest rates are available only with certain conditions on minimum balances, so money has been moving rapidly between accounts in the old and the new banks as I try to get money into the right place ( one bank insists on everything coming in via the current account). We have also been paying out share dividends for the year which briefly touches joint accounts before being moved to individuial acounts.

I wondered if somewhere the BiB were watching me? If so, hi boys, just trying to make an honest living whilst giving the minimum to Mr Brown to waste and taking advantage of the forthcoming increase in interest rates.

[leosayer]

It depends on whether someone at your banks report your transaction to their MLO (Money Laundering Officer) for a suspicious transaction eg paying in unusually large sum, from a suspicious country or source, a large amount of cash paid in.

[Leftie]

leosayer said:

It depends on whether someone at your banks report your transaction to their MLO (Money Laundering Officer) for a suspicious transaction eg paying in unusually large sum, from a suspicious country or source, a large amount of cash paid in.

So basically it is a combination of factors? Sounds OK then as they will recognise the source as we have personal and business acounts at the same banks. I was thinking that the MLO's must have national criteria or some sort of scoring matrix that identifies suspicious transactions.

[Eric Mc]

I think the threshold has been set at £9,000 since 2003. This is actually a British interpretation of what is an EU directive which actually set the limit at 15,000 Euros.

Technically, NCIS no longer exists. Its brief life came to an end when it was merged into the newly formed Serious and Organised Crime Authority (SOCA) a year ir so ago.

[Leftie]

Eric Mc said:

I think the threshold has been set at £9,000 since 2003. This is actually a British interpretation of what is an EU directive which actually set the limit at 15,000 Euros.

Technically, NCIS no longer exists. Its brief life came to an end when it was merged into the newly formed Serious and Organised Crime Authority (SOCA) a year ir so ago.

So is that an absoluite: £9000 = SOCA get told or do they have some common sense where they know the money is coming from a business account with no cash transactions and the paymnets all being large UK corporations or UK governmnet departmnets?

[Eric Mc]

It's compulsory for certain types of transactions. I'm not sure how banks handle it as it would seem to be far too low and SOCA would be inundated with pointless notifications that they couldn't cope with if the limit for banks ar such a low level.

Ordinary traders however, MUST notify SOCA if any single CASH transaction exceeds this threshold.

[jacobyte]

I received over 10K a couple of years ago by bank transfer from an overseas sponsor. I needed to withdraw the cash from the bank so that I could take it to the race team to pay for my drive.

Withdrawing the cash required the usual passport and driving licence ID, and I was then ushered into a "private room" at the back. I was wondering if there might be a couple of officers with rubber gloves waiting for me, but it was just the same cashier and the manager. They were actually very good and asked a few questions to go on file.

I asked if it was specifically for money laundering checks, but they said it was only precautionary. They were just doing their DD to cover thier backs in case they were investigated for the transaction, as not all large transfers are checked out.

But I felt like a right east-end crim walking out of the bank with all those reddies in my briefcase, trying not to grin too much

Edited by jacobyte on Wednesday 18th April 16:54