French Finance Minister Michel
has announced new curbs on the use of prepaid credit and debit cards in the
wake of the November 13 Paris attacks in France.
Announcing fresh moves
against terrorist financing, the Finance Minister said on Monday that France would target prepaid debit cards
which it said were used in the recent Paris attacks.
"We will regulate more
strictly the use of prepaid cards which were used in the November 13 attacks,
in order to make it harder to remain anonymous," Finance Minister Michel
Sapin told a news conference.
Currently, prepaid credit cards
can be recharged without identity checks so long as they don't exceed 2,500
euros over one year.
Details of stricter debit card rules,
which are part of a wider set of measures to combat the financing of terror,
are to be given in early 2016, the finance ministry said.
"There are new means of
payment which have been created which should be on our radar," said Bruno
Dalles, head of the ministry's Tracfin financing intelligence unit.
"I am thinking
particularly of prepaid cards, especially if they are delivered in nearby
foreign countries and used in France, for example to book hotel rooms," he
told the news conference.
Among other measures, finance
ministry officials are to be given easier access to information about suspects
on police watchlists, allowing them to probe their finances, Sapin said.
France is to also to make it
easier to freeze a wide range of assets of individuals suspected of committing,
or planning to commit, acts of terror, not just their bank accounts, as is the
case now.
Sapin also said he would ask EU
members to accelerate implementing the bloc's latest anti-money laundering
measures.
"We have received messages
of sympathy and support from our (foreign) colleagues," Sapin said, but
now "we must go beyond emotion and take action".
Sapin also asked the Financial
Action Task Force (FATF), an international body fighting money-laundering and
terrorist financing, to become "more subtle" when identifying
uncooperative states.
For now, the FATF's black list
only contains two countries, Iran and North Korea, he noted.
France will also be asking for
easier EU access to SWIFT, the transit system for 90 percent of international
bank transfers, Sapin said.
Image credit: City of London
Police
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