PERU
On October 7, the Economy Committee began the analysis of the bill that proposes to grant the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) direct access to the banking and tax secrecy of those under investigation in order to prevent and combat money laundering. The committee heard from the head of the FIU of the Banking Superintendency, Sergio Espinoza, who spoke about the initiative. The committee is expected to continue its study in the short term.
Espinoza expressed his opinion that the measure would offer the FIU a tool enabling it to access complete information on the management of assets and large amounts of money belonging to persons being investigated for illegal acts. He added that this would help them to produce better financial intelligence reports aimed at ruling out or confirming these cases.
In turn, this measure will “facilitate” the exchange of information with similar authorities abroad (principle of reciprocity). He said that practically “all financial information units have direct access to this kind of information,” explaining that current access to information has to be provided through judicial authorization. He said that this situation prevents information from being shared adequately.