Infrastructural Factors for Managing Anti-Money Laundering Challenges in the Iran Banking System and a Model based on International Guidelines

Abstract

The necessity to create stable and transparent economic conditions has made combating money laundering a universal policy on the agenda of parliaments and governments by all countries. This is currently the specific issue of the Iran monetary and banking system. In this regard, the infrastructural approach includes all effective dimensions of international anti-money laundering mechanisms such as Basel Committee indices and recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force, and the experiences of other countries show that applying factors of this approach can enhance Iran monetary and banking system internationally and decreases money laundering risk. In order to identify the challenges in this area and reach a model which includes a set of infrastructural factors in fighting money laundering, this study uses qualitative and quantitative parts; in qualitative part, the criteria raised by experts through face-to-face interviews and multi-stage coding, content analysis, and Fuzzy Delphi method, and in quantitative part, the criteria raised by questionnaire and factor analysis technique, and the RMSEA index have been used for fitting the model. Based on international guidelines, the proposed infrastructural model consists of functional, contextual, and structural dimensions and findings indicate that a systematic application of the proposed model improves the efficiency of anti-money laundering system and helps optimal management of anti-money laundering challenges of banks. In this regard, the relative weights of legal, political, geopolitical, and risk-taking components of the structural dimension highlight the importance and necessity of focusing on this dimension and its components of the Iran banking system.

Keywords

• anti-money laundering
• infrastructure factors
• international guidelines
• challenge management