Key facts
- India's financial sector has launched a new platform named ARIFAC to bolster anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing efforts.
- ARIFAC is an industry-led initiative that includes banks, NBFCs, payment firms, insurers, and virtual digital asset service providers.
- The Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) will observe the platform's activities.
- The platform's secretariat will be jointly managed by the Payments Council of India (PCI) and the Fintech Convergence Council (FCC).
- Key focus areas for ARIFAC include training, sanctions screening, digital banking risks, and virtual digital assets.
India's financial sector has launched a new industry-led platform, the Alliance of Reporting Entities in AML/CFT (ARIFAC), to enhance its frameworks for combating money laundering and terror financing. This initiative brings together a wide range of financial entities, including banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), payment firms, insurers, and virtual digital asset service providers, with the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) participating as an observer.
The platform, whose secretariat will be jointly managed by the Payments Council of India (PCI) and the Fintech Convergence Council (FCC), aims to foster greater coordination, improve compliance standards, and strengthen institutional capabilities to combat increasingly sophisticated financial crimes, cyber fraud, and risks associated with digital assets.
ARIFAC will concentrate on five key areas: capacity building through training and certification, promoting cross-sector collaboration, facilitating engagement with regulators and enforcement agencies, developing industry-wide typologies and best practices, and representing India's reporting entity ecosystem internationally. Industry-led working groups will delve into specific issues such as enhanced due diligence, sanctions screening, cross-border information sharing, mule accounts, digital banking risks, and virtual digital assets, with the goal of formulating guidance and recommending best practices for adoption across the financial sector.