The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) says it has commenced plans to establish a Joint Financial Intelligence Collaboration framework.
This is just as the unit mobilised regulators, banks, insurance companies, fintechs, Virtual Asset Service Providers, technology firms and other stakeholders in identifying emerging financial threats and disrupting illicit financial networks.
The agency, in a statement it released on Thursday, explained the move aimed at strengthening financial intelligence sharing between public and private sector institutions.
Daily Trust reports that the agency recently uncovered an emerging crowdfunding network being exploited to raise and channel funds for terrorist operations. The agency had revealed that terrorist financiers were opening bank accounts in women’s names as well as using phone numbers for mobile banking or account alerts that are not registered to the account holder or the true beneficiary.
Updating Nigerians on the efforts being made to tackle terrorism financing and other illicit financial flow, the NFIU noted that the proposed framework is expected to enhance collaboration with the actors mentioned above.
‘Nigeria has taken a significant step towards enhancing the integrity and resilience of its financial system, as the NFIU brought together leading stakeholders to help shape a new framework for financial intelligence sharing.
‘The initiative seeks to create a trusted platform through which public and private-sector institutions can work together more effectively to identify emerging threats, disrupt illicit financial networks and strengthen the integrity of Nigeria’s financial system, ‘the statement partly read.
Representing the Chief Executive Officer of the NFIU, Hafsat Abubakar Bakari, the Unit’s General Counsel, Felix Obiamalu, said the engagement marked a shift from discussions about the initiative to designing and implementing the proposed framework.
Obiamalu said, ‘We have moved from dialogue to design, to commitment and implementation. The objective is no longer simply to discuss the concept. It is to jointly determine what this partnership should look like, how it should operate, what value it should create and how it can be sustained over time.’
He said the proposed Joint Financial Intelligence Collaboration is designed to provide a trusted platform for public and private sector institutions to share relevant intelligence more effectively and strengthen the country’s response to increasingly sophisticated forms of financial crime.