Depositor Details Similar To That Of Drawee’s Needed
- New CBSL Guidelines To Banks
Under new guidelines issued by Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), details of depositors too are required, similar to the requirements needed when it comes to cash withdrawals by drawees of such bank accounts.
Those details include the requirements of the name and address of the depositor and his or her’s national identity card number. The depositor also has to say why he or she is making such a deposit.
A Banker told this reporter that the reason for these requirements is to track down any malpractice, possibly in relation to deposits made from monies obtained through ill-gotten means.
Previously there was no such requirement, at least as far as deposits were concerned, with the probable avenue opened for authorities to investigate such frauds then being the scrutinisation of such suspect bank accounts only.
In a gradually evolving process leading to the present scenario, starting from a deposit slip where originally only the beneficiary’s details were required, it subsequently graduated to where the depositor’s name and signature too were needed, and now, additionally, these other details as well.
On top of scrutinizing a suspect bank account, another layer has now been added on, ie the scrutinisation of bank deposit slips as well, possibly not only to get hold of the “beneficiary” of the crime, ie the recipient of such monies, but also to get hold of the partner in crime, the depositor, ie, if, ipso facto the depositor and the beneficiary are not one and the same person, through these seemingly new legal requirements.
The exception however possibly being is where the beneficiary accountholder is not culpable for such crimes in the seemingly unlikely event that if the sole perpetrator of the crime was the depositor, and, either for the purpose of wanting to hide his crime (ipso facto by getting only the innocent beneficiary accountholder to face the music in the event this ill begotten deposit is discovered by the authorities), or for the sake of wanting that innocent beneficiary to get into trouble by depositing such monies into the latter’s account due to reasons of malice, then such depositor details on the remittance slip may be useful.
It may also be useful to know how successful CBSL’s new strategy has been in helping to solve crimes of this nature due to these new conditions. If however this leads to an increase in the circulation of “black” money in the economy because of the fear among the public, whether criminal or not, to deposit monies in banks, fearing that their privacy is being compromised due to the requirement of additional information by the authorities, thereby leading to the diversion of their monies to illegal financial institutions as a means of maintaining their privacy, then it may be good for the authorities to have a second look as to whether the need to have such details serve any useful purpose or not.
“Let the robber barons come.” Eh, what?
