Nicosia – The Bank of Cyprus (BoC) and the Cyprus Fiduciary Association (CYFA) co-organised a forum titled ‘Building sustainable international business for the next decade’ at the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia on Thursday, 2 December 2021.
During the forum, which was welcomed by the Director of International Banking of BoC, Haris Pistos and the President of CYFA, Christoforos Koutouroushis, more than 80 professionals from the inland’s administrative services sector had the opportunity to engage with BOC officials and exchange views and ideas on the future of corporate banking.
In his speech, Pistos said that for the success of an International Banking effort, specific goals must be set, while explaining the process of opening accounts, observing all applicable safeguards.
Addressing the participants, he said, “it is time to start together as a team, with common goals to build together a sustainable International Banking for the next decade.”
He added: “We can only achieve this when we all comply with the highest international AML standards, avoiding reputational risk and being reliable and trustworthy partners with correspondent Banks.”
He then went on to announce that BoC is once again exhibiting its market leadership by being the first bank in Cyprus to set up an IBU Technology Hub for financial technology companies choosing Cyprus as their base.
In his speech, Koutouroushis pointd pout that “we all need to restore our reputation as an international business destination. And the only way we can achieve this is to become more ethical, transparent and efficient, this way attracting high quality investors.”
During the forum, participants were briefed on the current KYC and AML policies implemented by the BoC through two separate presentations by bank officials.
Niki Charilaou, Director of the Financial Crime and Sanctions Compliance Department of the BoC who spoke on “Financial Crime Risk Management in a Digital Age” and Christos Michailidis, AML Quality & Control Director of the International Banking Department of the BoC, who spoke on “Solving the KYC puzzle for sustainable business.”
