Foreign payments for the loans are originating from across China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. But in many cases the bank, which has an extensive network of retail and business banking contacts across the region, had no record of the companies claimed to be paying the salaries.
ANZ last week told mortgage brokers it will not accept mortgage applications where 100 per cent of income funding the mortgage application is foreign and has tightened lending criteria for other foreign residents.The bank said it had not found any instances of money laundering but conceded there might be a risk.
Under its new rules, an applicant must include their passport with all stamped pages, three months of pay slips, salary credits verified from bank statements, employment contracts with employer’s telephone number and website details.
From the AFR:
Bravo. But this is really just the tip of the iceberg.
The bigger issue is the potentially billions of dollars being laundered through Australia’s homes via non-bank chanels, as warned by the Paris-based Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).
In 2003, Australia agreed to implement comprehensive anti-money laundering (AML) regulations that captured real estate gatekeepers like accountants, lawyers, real estate agents and other non-financial businesses. However, the second tranche of the reform to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 has remained in limbo for a decade, and has now been defered indefinitely by the government.
Unless the government gets serious about stopping dirty foreign money, Australian homes will continue to be a haven for laundered funds.
