1、外文题目： Informal and Formal Money Transfer: Financial Service or Financial 出 处： International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 作 者： Shahid Nawaz,Roddy McKinnon and Robert Webb 原 文： Informal and Formal Money Transfer: Financial Service or Financial Crime Shahid Nawaz,Roddy McKinnon and Robert Web
2、b INTRODUCTION Prior to the events of 11th September,2001,inter-national cooperation in the field of global financial crime prevention was already well established.Prompted by separate initiatives led by the United Nations Organisation and the Basel Committee inthe late 1980s,the creation in 1989 of
3、 the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering(FATF) by the G7 countries set in place an international body to coordinate anti-money laundering measures across 26 countries and jurisdictions.Subsequently,and prompted by the creation of the FATF,other regional interstate organisations in wester
4、n and eastern Europe,across the Americas and the Caribbean,and also in Asia,have drafted similar anti-money laundering standards for their respective countries In turn,these interstate regulatory initiatives havebeen complemented by parallel business led voluntary initiatives,such as the example of
5、the Wolfs berg Anti-Money Laundering Principles designed to promote greater transparency across the banking sector. The core policy objectives of the FATF and the subsequent regional offshoots and business led initiatives has been to improve the effectiveness of criminal justice systems,devise effic
6、ient financial system regulations and follow these with effective law enforcement in order to combat money laundering activities.However,combating increasingly transnational money laundering activities presents significant regulatory and law enforcement challenges.As Moulette has reported,citing fig
7、ures from the IMF,the scale of money laundering worldwide could be somewhere between 2 per cent and 5 percent of world GDP. In spite of this ongoing coordinated activity the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon have led the FATF to focus more actively its attention upon previously tole
8、rated,if not legally sanctioned and controlled,informal financial services net works.Emerging evidence indicates that informal financial services networks have played an instrumental role in the international movement of terrorist finances In particular,attention is now being focused upon what we re
9、fer to in this paper as money transfer networks(MTNs).Despite the often long standing historic basis of many of these types of networks,MTNs have attracted only limited academic,and even less political,interest in the West prior to the declaration ofwar on terrorism. Typically,the most often discuss
10、ed type of MTNs is informal money transfer networks (IMTNs).As the term informal infers,the financial operations conducted by IMTNs,and one of their primary advantages,is that they operate predominantly beyond the regulatory oversight of national and international financial system regulatory bodies.
11、 Despite the attention being paid to informal MTNs,and to the South Asian variant of the hawala in particular,M T N s also play an important role in formal financial systems in developed and developing country markets. Formal money transfer networks(FMTNs),such as correspondent bank networks,fulfil
12、an important financial intermediary role within the international banking system,especially in relation to foreign exchange movements.However,the formal nature of some MTNs has proven insufficient to isolate these specific networks from a degree of criticism more commonly reserved for unregulated fi
13、nancial services practices.Due to the fungibility of finance, it is now more readily accepted that a significant proportion of the money circulating within FMTNs could,in all probability,have entered the financial system,first,via unregulated and largely anonymous sources within IMTNs.As Johnson sta
14、tes,correspondent banking arrangements allow the transfer of both illegally and legally derived money from the unregulated to the regulated financial institutions, thus allowing funds in through the backdoor of the regulated institutions to commence or continue the laundering process. Moreover,and a
15、 practice ideally suited to the individual,as well as the state,sponsorship of terrorist activities,cleanfunds may be channelled out of the backdoor as easily as illegal funds can be brought in.Accordingly,the financial flows within and between FMTNs and IMTNs are neitheruni directional nor mutually
16、 exclusive.How national and international financial system regulators come to address this vexing issue may prove to be a key unanswered long haulissue in thewaron financial crime. THE GROWTH OF IMTNS Informal money transfer networks are found throughout the world in a variety of forms.One of the ea
17、rliest examples of money transfer networks can be traced to the Tang Dynasty in China (656AD-909AD).As Lambert explains,the growing tea trade between the south and the imperial capital underscored the necessity for a more convenient method of exchange.As a result,a money transfer network called feic
18、hien,literally flying money was developed.In the context of this article,and especially with regards to origins of the war on terrorism,it is impossible to overlook the heavy element of irony that this term conveys. All IMTNs share a common set of operational characteristics,namely,a lack of records
19、,customer identification or regulatory oversight,and the potential for misuse by criminals.9 As the FATF outline, the most commonly referred to examples of IMTNs are the Chinese chit or chop system of East and Southeast Asia,the black market peso exchange(BMPE)system of Latin America,and the hawala
20、system,with its off shoot,the hundi system of South Asia.Mirroring well-established migrant labour patterns,smaller IMTNs are also known to provide alternate remittance services between France and North Africa,Spain and the Spanish Moroc can enclave of Melilla,Italy and Southeast Asia,Germany and Tu
21、rkey as well as the former Yugoslavia,and the Netherlands and Suriname. The position of informal money transfer networks alongside that of the formal financial system can best be understood in terms of what is commonly referred to in the academic literature as financial dualism. More specifically,ho
22、wever,IMTNs can also be understood in the wider context of what is variously referred to,and often somewhat pejoratively,as archaic remittance systems,parallel,fragmented,black orresidual financial systems or underground financial systems. The financial services roles played by IMTNs can be defined
23、from two important perspectives. IMTNs can be presented as long-standing,indeed archaic financial services practices,which predate the creation of modern financial systems.As Gurley to aid the allocation of resources between deficit and surplus units.16 If a financial system did not exist,institutio
24、ns,firms and households would be forced to operate as self-contained units.Thus financial systems help to utilise societys scarce resources better,increase productive efficiency and thus aid in increasing economic growth and standards of living.However,those financial institutions that operate in th
25、e developed and formal financial systems undertake their role with consideration of an expected risk return trade-off,which is calculable and based on past experience.In contrast,the nature of business conducted by those players involved in IMTNs implies that they will,more often than not, sit outsi
26、dethe formal risk return trade off. Although neoclassical financial theory provides one means of understanding the existence of IMTNs,the weakness of this approach lies in explaining the continuing relevance and popularity of IMTNs in the modern era.Explaining the continuing relevance and popularity
27、 of IMTNs presents an interesting paradox.On the one hand,the continuing relevance and popularity of IMTNs can be explained by the importance in some close-knit societies of traditional cultural mores while,on the other hand, it is also inherently linked to the increasingly trans regional and transn
28、ational basis of trade,finance and family structures which typify our increasingly shared globalised existence.Therefore,IMTNs are informal in nature and rely on non-traditional forms of delivery but,increasingly,are very much reliant on formal systems and the influences of globalisation.For example
29、,regarding the latter point,it is significant that traditional MTNs have proven to be highly adaptable,indeed even well suited,to contemporary ecommerce and mcommerce technological platforms a characteristic which suggests that traditional M T N s are well suited to the international cyber launderin
30、g business which is estimated globally to be worth around US$50bn per annum. From another perspective,IMTNs can be presented as being a structural response to information asymmetries in the financial services marketplace and a necessary feature of segmented financial systems. The problem of asymmetric or incomplete information flows was first introduced in the seminal work of Akerlor and considered in a financial institutions setting by,among others,Santomero, Campbell and Kracaw and Diamond. The significance of asymmetric information,however,is especially
