KATHMANDU. The misuse of informal banking and money transfer networks by criminal groups is on the rise around the world, according to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF, which works to curb money laundering and terrorist financial activities, has stressed the need for governments and businesses to take stronger action against commercial networks that help criminals transfer and hide illicit funds. <\/p>\n
According to the FATF, hawala and similar informal money transfer systems have been widely used in criminal activities in recent times. In such systems, money is transferred through agents instead of traditional banks and regulated financial institutions. <\/p>\n
The FATF has said that underground banking and HOSSP-based money laundering are becoming more systematic and professional. It says that some networks are operating in the same structure as modern businesses. <\/p>\n
“These networks were used to launder cash from crimes such as drug trafficking and smuggling, but now they are being used to move money across borders through fraud, cybercrime, terrorist financial activities, illegal gaming and gambling, and organised crime,” the FATF said. <\/p>\n
The report also warns that professional service providers such as lawyers, accountants, auditors, consultants and real estate professionals may in some cases help criminal networks to carry out or hide illicit financial transactions. <\/p>\n
The FATF concludes that the development of technology has made it more challenging to identify such underground financial networks. The increasing use of encrypted communications, financial technology, identity concealment devices, and cryptocurrencies can make it difficult for criminals to transfer money quickly and trace the source and destination of transactions. <\/p>\n
According to the FATF, some underground banking and money laundering networks are no longer just like ordinary criminal groups but are now evolving into systematic and professional structures that provide specialized services. Such networks also provide special services for their customers to transfer and hide illicit money, according to the FATF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KATHMANDU. The misuse of informal banking and money transfer networks by criminal groups is on the rise around the world, according to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF, which works to curb money laundering and terrorist financial activities, has stressed the need for governments and businesses to take stronger action against commercial networks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,102,123,126,129,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-en","category-international-en","category-banking-update-en","category-banking-news-en","category-special-en","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bank-1.jpg","publishedDateNp":"\u0968\u0967 \u092d\u093e\u0926\u094d\u0930 \u0968\u0966\u096e\u0969, \u0906\u0908\u0924\u0935\u093e\u0930 \u0967\u0969:\u096b\u096c","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38616,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38615\/revisions\/38616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/38610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bankingsansar.com\/bs_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}