Maputo, Sept. 30, 2025 (Lusa) - The Bank of Mozambique has complained that financial institutions do not impose sanctions on employees for violating legislation on preventing and combating money laundering, and has also acknowledged that the training provided is insufficient.
"There is no significant record of sanctions applied by financial institutions to their employees for violating integrity values, for example, for neglecting due diligence measures required by law, to accommodate transactions that would normally be considered suspicious," according to the recent sectoral assessment report on money laundering risks, consulted today by Lusa.
The document, which resulted from the assessment carried out between 2023 and 2024, adds that the legislation in force "defines the appropriate mechanisms to protect bank employees from possible negative consequences resulting from reporting suspicious transactions or other actions", within the scope of "compliance with obligations to prevent and combat money laundering, including confidentiality mechanisms".
The Banco de Moçambique report states that by 31 December 2023, the credit institutions sub-sector had 10,537 employees, "148 of whom work with prevention and anti-money laundering issues".
Despite recognising the training provided by the institutions to their employees, the report concluded that it was predominantly "purely informative, relating to concepts, without addressing risk issues in depth", warning that "employees in the compliance areas (...) have no specific training on the subject of money laundering prevention".
At the end of 2023, the Mozambican financial system, regulated by the Bank of Mozambique, had 15 banks, 13 microbanks, three electronic money institutions, four money transfer institutions, four credit cooperatives, 13 savings and loan organisations, two financial brokerage companies, six exchange bureaus, and 2,212 microcredit operators, among others.
On 22 October 2022, Mozambique was placed on the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) "grey list" of financial jurisdictions for failing to eliminate deficiencies in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
Meanwhile, the government announced that the FATF would meet in the country from September 8 to 11 to decide on the international "grey list" of money laundering, with a decision expected in October.
Mozambique is confident that it will be removed from this financial institution's "grey list", after having put forward a series of measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, the national coordinator for the removal of Mozambique from that list, Luís Abel Cezerilo, said in August.
PVJ/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
