Kazakhstan and ITMCFM sign agreement on technical assistance cooperation

The agreement has been signed between the Financial Monitoring Committee of the Kazakh Ministry of Finance and the International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring founded by the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

The agreement defines the key lines of technical assistance for the purpose of developing a national anti-money laundering system in Kazakhstan, including:

• development of Kazakh AML/CFT legislation, specifically regarding the procedure for disclosing information and presenting documents to the Kazakh FIU – the Financial Monitoring Committee; 
• assisting the Kazakh Financial Monitoring Committee in creating an IT-system for collecting, storing, and pre-processing data;
• participation of the Kazakh Financial Monitoring Committee in the creation of the EAG Single Information Space; 
• conducting research in the sphere of AML/CFT; 
• developing training and methodological programmes, conducting training events.

The agreement has been signed between the International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring established by the Russian financial intelligence unit—the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (represented by its CEO, Alexander Batalov) — and the Kazakh financial intelligence unit – the Financial Monitoring Committee of the Kazakh Finance Ministry (represented by the Committee Chairman Musiraly Utebayev). 

Since 2004, Russia and Kazakhstan have been partners within the EAG. To quote EAG Acting Executive Secretary Igor Nebyvaev, “Cooperation of these countries is founded on the historic relations of strategic partnership and interaction aimed at creating conditions for effective enforcement of international AML/CFT standards in the region, mainly the FATF 40+9 Recommendations.” 

Kazakhstan is currently working actively to develop its national AML/CFT system and bring it into line with international standards. Specifically, it is preparing the adoption of the Law “On Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing”. The key objective for the country is developing the national financial intelligence unit and joining FATF and Egmont Group which unites financial intelligence units from all over the world. According to Musyraly Utebayev, initiatives of extreme relevance for the national AML/CFT system will be implemented under this signed agreement. The primary focus will be on developing the Kazakh financial intelligence unit and training staff. 

The Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service deputy head Nikolai Varlamov, who was present at the signing ceremony, underscored that signing of this agreement should become an important step towards improving and raising the effectiveness of the Kazakh national anti-money laundering system and expanding the infrastructure of cooperation between the two states along the lines of combating economic crimes and the threat of international terrorism. “Ultimately we seek to increase the potential for economic growth and investor appeal of the Eurasian region. This is accomplished thanks to such positive factors as a reduced crime rate, the black economy becoming marginalized, creating favorable conditions for legitimate private business, and improved manageability of the economy,” Mr. Varlamov said.