Central Bank of Nepal releases Financial Information Unit annual report showing a 54 percent rise in suspicious transaction reports

The Central Bank of Nepal’s Financial Information Unit (FIU) published its annual report for fiscal year 2080/81 (2023/24), summarising the Unit’s work and key indicators for Nepal’s asset (property) purification prevention system, including reporting through the goAML platform. Entities covered under goAML reached 1,639 across reporting entities, law enforcement and investigative agencies, and regulatory agencies. Reporting entities submitted 16,087,812 threshold transactions in FY 2080/81 (up from 16,001,301 in FY 2079/80) and filed 8,330 suspicious transaction and activity reports (up about 54 percent from 5,835). The FIU analysed 1,632 reports, a 34 percent increase from the previous year, forwarding 989 to law enforcement and investigative agencies for investigation and to regulatory agencies for regulatory action, while archiving 646 for potential re-analysis; the FIU links many suspicious reports to tax evasion, monetary, banking, foreign exchange, insurance and cooperative matters, fraud, and lottery, gambling and speculation. The report also covers Nepal’s third-round mutual evaluation completed in 2023, reform efforts during the one-year observation period, and implementation of the time-bound action plan following Nepal’s placement on the Financial Action Task Force list for increased monitoring, alongside coordination, capacity-building and typologies including hundi, cyber fraud, online illegal gambling, virtual assets, corruption and import-export related asset purification.