The Asia\/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) has urged enhanced anti-money laundering measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Nepal.- The\u00a0Asia\/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) has said that border casinos in Nepal have a significant risk for money laundering. The mutual evaluation report (MER) examined how Nepal is implementing and enforcing the 40 standards of\u00a0the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and deemed the current regulatory framework for casinos to be “unclear and ineffective.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report said that while Nepal’s economy and financial sector were generally less attractive for laundering foreign proceeds, the presence of border casinos posed a unique challenge.\u00a0Nepal shares its borders with India and China, and the report suggested that money laundering through casinos and legal entities is likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It highlighted a need for the country to demonstrate a high-level commitment, allocate more resources and enhance cooperation. APG recommended that Nepal should significantly improve risk-based AML\/CFT supervision of cooperatives, casinos, dealers in precious metals and stones (DPMS) and real estate agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The APG’s assessment placed the National Money-Laundering Threat rate for Nepal’s casino sector in 2020 at a “medium-high vulnerability” level. It found that while all casinos engage in foreign exchange transactions, only six operators, representing ten casinos, have obtained the required licence from Nepal Rastra Bank, and just two have submitted the necessary monthly returns for their foreign exchange transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nepal is home to 28 licensed casinos: 10 in Kathmandu and the rest located near the Indian border. They are prohibited from offering gambling to Nepalese citizens. Their annual turnover is estimated at NPR9bn (US$67.5m). The largest has 101 table games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Asia\/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) has urged enhanced anti-money laundering measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":22068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Asia\/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) has identified significant anti-money laundering (AML) risks within Nepal's casino sector, particularly concerning border operations. The mutual evaluation report (MER) deemed the current regulatory framework \"unclear and ineffective,\" highlighting widespread non-compliance with licensing and foreign exchange reporting requirements among the 28 licensed casinos.","focusai_entities":"Asia\/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG), Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Nepal Rastra Bank","focusai_location":"Nepal, Kathmandu, India, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.95), investor_analyst (0.85), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"FATF Sanction Implications?","query":"Given the APG's findings and Nepal's 'medium-high vulnerability' rating, what specific enforcement actions or potential FATF sanctions could be imposed if the AML\/CFT deficiencies are not remediated within the stipulated timeframe?"},{"label":"Operator Compliance Burden?","query":"How will the recommended improvements in risk-based AML\/CFT supervision and the requirement for full licensing from Nepal Rastra Bank impact the operational costs and compliance burden for both domestic and international casino operators in Nepal?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,16334],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-777009113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-south-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777009113","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777009113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777009113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777009128,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777009113\/revisions\/777009128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777009113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777009113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777009113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}