Macao SAR has achieved 6 substantial effectiveness ratings out of 11 effectiveness outcomes in the 2017 Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) adopted by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, one of which is about the effectiveness of the use of financial intelligence. Out of the various jurisdictions that have been evaluated globally so far, only about 1/3 can achieve a high / substantial rating. The MER indicates that the financial intelligence of GIF is of good quality and could serve as a rich intelligence source for the law enforcement agencies (LEAs). This rating confirms the work of the Macao SAR Government in this regard.

Since its establishment on the 8th of August 2006 under Executive Ruling no. 227/2006, GIF has been playing an important role in the analysis and effective use of intelligence and is committed to the effective implementation of its competent duties - to collect, analyze and disseminate information in suspicious money laundering and terrorist financing transaction reports. The efforts of GIF in the collection, analysis and sharing of financial intelligence over the past decade have also been recognized and affirmed in that mutual evaluation. The report also points out that GIF has operated well as an autonomous independent financial intelligence unit, with sound security procedures and controls in place to ensure data security and confidentiality, while also noting that its independence is important in coordinating different areas.

The MER points out that GIF can coordinate effectively the work of the AML/CFT Working Group (“WG”), including to facilitate and accomplish the first Macao SAR ML and TF risk assessment and the APG third round mutual evaluation. GIF is recognized for coordinating the information exchange and cooperation among the WG members in the MER.

The MER further mentions that GIF’s use of multi-source information and sound analysis results in a very high number of financial intelligence disseminations for investigation purposes. Cooperation and information exchange works well among GIF, supervisors and LEAs. GIF also provides professional technical assistance to them. At the same time, GIF’s use of information from Suspicious Transactions Reports (STRs) and other sources in conducting strategic analysis helped to shape AML/CFT policy and yearly strategic plan. Moreover, GIF disseminates timely information and intelligence to LEAs and supervisors on current issues of concerns and trends, thus keeping all the government departments updated on the latest information of AML/CFT issues as well as raising ML/TF awareness. In regards to international cooperation, GIF establishes cooperation and information exchange channel with overseas FIU counterparts, and set up internal case management system to keep track of information exchange progress. Moreover, feedback will be sorted by GIF from overseas counterparts for evaluating the effective use of the intelligence.

In addition, the MER notes that the STR quality is reasonably good and adequate to support GIF analysis. This demonstrates the efforts and resources contributed by the private sector in improving the internal system for STR reporting obligation. In future, GIF will strive to promote the sectors’ understanding of ML/TF risks as well as enhancing the quality of STR through various outreach programs.