{"id":13528,"date":"2021-01-19T23:05:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T23:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=13528"},"modified":"2026-04-23T22:35:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:35:26","slug":"philippines-money-laundering-regulation-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-money-laundering-regulation-advances","title":{"rendered":"Philippines money laundering regulation advances"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A bicameral committee has made changes to the Senate\u2019s and the House\u2019s proposals to amend the 2001 Anti-Money Laundering Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Philippines.- A bicameral conference committee from the Philippines Congress has approved the latest version of the country’s anti-money laundering bill<\/a><\/em>, <\/strong>which could affect the operations of Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel was formed to reconcile House Bill No. 7904 and Senate Bill (SB) No. 1945. If passed, the bill will amend the Anti-Money Laundering Act <\/strong>(AMLA) of 2001 to comply with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest version of the bill includes tax crime<\/strong> as a predicate offence to money laundering but takes up the Senate\u2019s proposal to set the threshold at Php25m (US$520,427) instead of Php20m (US$416,342).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another change added by the committee to the original bill is to raise the threshold for the submission of reports on real-estate transactions<\/strong> from Php5m (US$104,066) to those in excess of Php7.5m (US$156,099).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FATF<\/strong> has given the Philippines government until February 1<\/a><\/em><\/strong> to implement changes to the AML to avoid being grey-listed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 2021, the FATF is due to make a decision on whether the Philippines will be grey-listed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact on POGOs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The bill, if passed, would impact on real estate developers and brokers as well as casinos<\/strong>, POGOs and their services providers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amendment places casino operators under the scope of the AMLA<\/strong> and defines whih large single cash transactions must be labelled as suspicious. In the case of casinos, this would apply to all individual transactions exceeding Php5m<\/strong> (US$103,999).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amendment strengthens the AMLA by allowing the enforcement of financial sanctions and facilitating prosecutions of money laundering overseas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bicameral committee has made changes to the Senate\u2019s and the House\u2019s proposals to amend the 2001 Anti-Money Laundering Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"A bicameral committee in the Philippines Congress has approved amendments to the 2001 Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA), incorporating tax crime as a predicate offense and adjusting reporting thresholds for real estate and casino transactions. These changes, aimed at complying with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations, will significantly impact Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), casinos, and their service providers, with a critical FATF grey-listing decision pending in June 2021.","focusai_entities":"Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), House Bill No. 7904, Senate Bill (SB) No. 1945","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.98), compliance_legal (0.98), operator_casino (0.95), payments_fraud_aml (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.85), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"FATF Grey-listing Impact","query":"What specific economic and operational ramifications could a FATF grey-listing have on the Philippines' iGaming sector, particularly POGOs and land-based casinos, beyond direct AML compliance costs?"},{"label":"Operational Compliance Costs","query":"How will the revised AMLA thresholds for real estate and casino transactions, including the Php5m suspicious transaction limit, necessitate changes in operational compliance frameworks and technology investments for affected entities?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,158,16333],"tags":[23911,23632,15789],"class_list":["post-13528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-integrated-resorts","tag-pogos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13528"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13543,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13528\/revisions\/13543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}