H.E AbdulAziz Al Ghurair Hosts U.S. Treasury Secretary in Abu Dhabi
US Ambassador to the UAE and heads of local banks also attend the high-profile dinner meeting
November 04, 2017
Earlier this week, H.E AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, Chairman of the UAE Banks Federation, a professional representative body comprising 48 member banks operating in the UAE, hosted the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steven T. Mnuchin, at a dinner meeting held in Abu Dhabi. The meeting, which was also attended by the US Ambassador to the UAE, Barbara A. Leaf, and other delegates from both the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Embassy, stressed on the strong bi-lateral ties between the UAE and the United States.
The meeting was attended by Chairman of UBF along with CEOs and Chairmen of other representative member banks.
Headed by the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Steven T. Mnuchin, the American delegate included Sigal Mandelker, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence; Eli Miller, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of the Treasury; Julie Mills, Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary, William Rich, Treasury Attaché.
H.E. Al Ghurair highlighted various initiatives undertaken by the UBF to assist the UAE banking industry. One of the key accomplishments in collaboration with the Central Bank of UAE was the setting up of industry guidelines for the “Independent Assessment of AML & Sanctions Compliance Framework” for banks in the UAE, which was also instrumental in formulating a white paper on “Exchange Company Framework & Controls”.
In addition, H.E. Al Ghurair highlighted the UBF “Information Sharing and Analysis Center” initiative that is dedicated to aggregating, analyzing and sharing cyber-threat intelligence from multiple sources in real-time, in order to support defensive actions to protect the UAE banking landscape. He stressed on the importance of this platform in enhancing abilities to respond effectively to the growing scope of such threats and showcasing the value of meaningful collaboration among banks to mitigate such risks. This platform will also be extended in the near future to include fraud trends.
It is hoped that these measures will promote international confidence in the UAE banking sector and facilitate multi-lateral dialogue between respective regulators and agencies to curtail the adverse effects of “De-Risking” as experienced through recent trends, thereby enabling legitimate business to proceed without hindrance through the appropriate restoration of USD clearing abilities for member banks.
