The Fijian Government has tabled an amendment to the Financial Transactions Reporting Bill to amend the threshold of cash transactions from $10,000 to $5,000.

Attorney-General and Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says this amendment will assist law enforcement agencies such as the Financial Intelligence Unit and the Fiji Police Force to monitor and detect possible money laundering, terrorist financing and other serious criminal activities.

He says analysis of banking statistics shows that 75 percent of transactions, both cash and non-cash, undertaken by customers of financial institutions in Fiji are for transactions below $10,000, which are not reported.

“The revision of the threshold for cash transaction reports result in a wider data set for intelligence purposes and will strengthen the ability of the Fiji Revenue and Customs Services and Financial Intelligence Unit to be more efficient in profiling and investigating tax evasion cases. This will result in an improvement in tax revenue collection and tax compliance.”

Sayed-Khaiyum says other law enforcement agencies such as the Fiji Police Force and the Fiji Independent Commission against Corruption will have access to more data on transactions, which will be useful in financial investigations linked to serious criminal activities such as money laundering.