Afghanistan Banks Association

د افغانستان د بانکونو ټولنه
Afghanistan Banks Association
Voice of The Banks

Afghanistan Banks Association

Corporate Governance, Risk and Compliance) GRC) Committee meeting was conducted by ABA

Date: May 12, 2018

In order to address the deficiencies in area of risk and compliance and strengthen the banking system in the country, Afghanistan Banks Association (ABA) conduct GRC Committee meeting on May 12, 2018. The meeting was attended by Anthony Barned (CEO AIB), Senior Executive of banks’ Risk& Compliance and ABA management. The agenda point focused on the following items.
1. Update on Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Private Sector Consultative Forum
2. FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) reporting to IRS
3. Approval of the meeting minutes
4. Update on the World Bank seminars on housing finance
5. Update on the planned new regulation on collateral
6. Update on the implementation by banks of the new Asset Classification and Provisioning Regulation
7. Follow up of last GRC Meeting decisions

Mr. Najibullah Amiri Executive Director ABA commenced the meeting by welcoming remarks. The meeting was mainly focused to review the first quarter performance and projected innovation in the current year goal’s accomplishment as well.
After welcoming remarks by Mr. Amiri, a presentation was delivered by Mr. Anthony regarding one of the items in Agenda (FATF). He updated members regarding FATF meeting that he attended on April 24, 2018 in Vienna, Austria. He started with some overall comments such as Identification of ultimate beneficial owners is very high priority, “Regtech” relates to how regulators are working with tech companies and Discussion on stability of De-risking. Mr. Ameri also briefed all the participants regarding his meeting with H.E. Deputy Minister Tazkira,recent development in verification of Tazkira and asked all of members regarding difficulties faced in the process. Fruitful discussion was then made on FATCA and most of the members shared valuable ideas and their input on this significant topic.
a. It was decided that work will continue to be done to strengthen FATCA principals in Afghanistan Banking System.
b. Mr. Faisal Raza CCO Ghazanfar Bank also shared that the world is now moving towards CRS (Common Reporting Standards) on basis of new agreement of tax compliant between more than 100 countries.
c. It was agreed that, ABA will submit an official letter to Da Afghanistan Bank asking for progress of the IRS Issue.

Besides, the main two issues, other points i.e asset classification, Politically Exposed Person (PEP) List, housing& finance workshop by World Bank and custom duty were discussed and certain instructions were proposed to be accomplished by ABA and GRCC members.