Terrorist Financing in India is a vital threat
The threat of terrorist financing in India is considerable as this country is the world’s largest recipient of inward remittances. It is obvious that remittances from non-resident Indians have a positive affect on the country’s economy. Nowadays non-resident Indians transfer about USD 25 billion a year to their families residing in India. Now Mexico and China have become ex-leaders as regards remittances.
While positively affecting India’s economy, such amounts also increase the risk of exploiting India’s inward remittance system for terrorist financing.
According to the statistics provided by the US National Counterterrorism Centre, since 2001 terrorist attacks in India have claimed more lives than anywhere else. Therefore, to fight international terrorism, it is important to reduce the flow of funds and money to terrorist organizations.
Indian intelligence officials state that terrorists ore and more often use regular banking channels and wire transfers to send money. Inward remittances are send to India by varied means, the most common of them are electronic wire/ swift, personal cheques, traveler’s cheques and hawala.
The modern inward remittance system is vulnerable to terrorist activities, and that is why many Indian banks are implementing systems that increase the scrutiny of remittances, identify suspicious transactions and comply with anti-money laundering standards.