Focus on financial crime

The New Zealand Police Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the five major New Zealand banks are to run a year-long pilot of the New Zealand Financial Crime Prevention Network (NZ-FCPN).

The network consists of ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank and Westpac as well as the FIU, and is designed to enhance members’ and the wider financial sector’s resilience to money laundering, terrorist financing and associated offending.

Detective Superintendent Iain Chapman said that as technology became more sophisticated, so did criminals and their attempts to conduct financial crimes such as money laundering and terrorism financing.

“New Zealand is not immune to the threat of organised financial crime and it’s vital to establish this network so we can harness the individual efforts that are already in place. Our aim is to improve our ability to detect, prevent and disrupt financial crime within our current laws,” he said.