The second annual specialized meeting on combating money laundering and terrorism financing in Saderat Bank of Iran was held with the presence of officials and representatives of Iran's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance and the Central Bank of Iran, senior managers of Saderat Bank of Iran in the presence of specialized instructors and inspectors of this department in this bank and the goals and plans of the bank was explained by the government officials and managers of Saderat Bank of Iran to improve the standards and regulations of combating money laundering and terrorism financing.

Hadi Khani, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance and Head of the Financial Intelligence Center stated in this meeting: 

The purpose and spirit of the law to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism is to support the legitimate economy of the country and the fundamental fight against corruption. 

Then he added: The spirit of the law to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism and the related regulations and laws are decisive support for the registered economy in Iran with the aim of creating a healthy and competitive environment in the field of economy through fighting and clarifying the hidden economy. This law attempts to force the shadow economy to operate transparently.

Emphasizing that the actions and achievements of Iran in the fight against money laundering and the fight against the financing of terrorism have not been properly explained in the international arena, he said: 

The mentality of fighting money laundering and the financing of terrorism in Iran is a deviant mentality and must be corrected, and with having this on mind, a space for discourse and discussions has been created to explain the actions of the country's banking system in this context.

In this meeting, while emphasizing the effectiveness of inspectors in the anti-money laundering process, the head of the Anti-Money Laundering Department of the Central Bank rejected the notion of “conflict between attracting resources and anti-money laundering” and said: “Complying with regulations does not mean avoiding customer orientation.”

Mohammad Hossein Dehghan Manshadi clarified and said that fighting money laundering in one word means “transparency”, in a multi-word definition it means “providing services according to customer needs”. The customer's requirement is obtained from the documentation we receive from the customer. Job, level of education, and data like that show us the level of his/her need for money and money transfer. The view of Iran's central bank is that if the banks act according to the rules, some problems, even social problems, will be solved.

Mahdi Eghbali Rad, a member of the board of directors of Iran's Sadaret Bank, also emphasized the special attention of the bank's management team to the importance of fighting money laundering and promoting its global standards. He emphasized that paying attention to complying with regulations and legal requirements in the fight against money laundering and the fight against terrorism financing has been followed with more serious attention than before and appropriate measures have been taken place at the level of the bank branches network. The level of controls and supervision carried out in the anti-money laundering and terrorist financing sector has been improved, and by focusing on more comprehensive training and holding continuous training meetings, the importance of this sector for the country's economy has been explained on a wide scale, and better results have were achieved in comparison to the last year.

In the opening ceremony of this three-day meeting, the head of the General Directorate for Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing emphasized that the world has moved towards fighting money laundering in order to reduce corruption, he explained the actions and plans of Iran's Saderat Bank in this field and announced the strategies of the bank in this regard.

In this meeting, Amir Reza Rashidi explained the path and the most important plans of the bank such as updating the identity, economic, and real information of customers, as well as providing services based on customers' risk and according to their needs, tools, and services of risk management, the ways for handling surplus accounts, Cash transactions, safe deposit boxes, and face-to-face services, the process of double identification and obtaining additional documents, as well as clarification, including the monitoring of commercial accounts, are among the most important goals of the bank in improving its level of combating money laundering and terrorism financing.

The head of the General Directorate for Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, also declared training, explaining the importance of combating money laundering and empowering employees, monitoring behavior and control measures, providing corrective guidelines, and adopting effective, proportionate, and deterrent measures, as the bank's important programs in this section.