The Wealth Management Institute and UBS have developed a programme designed to improve the way the wealth management sector combats dirty money.

The Zurich-listed lender and the group have created the WMI Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Risk Management Programme. UBS is sponsoring it for three years.

The WMI will create a series of AML teaching modules and terrorist finance topics. The training is to take account of specific AML/CFT issues faced by the wealth management industry as well as Singapore’s role as an international financial centre that operates in Asia.

Singapore's authorities have recently been cracking down on private banks, such as BSI and Falcon Private Bank, and others, for failing to deal with money laundering. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has ordered BSI's Singaporean business, and Falcon Private Bank, to leave town because they processed transactions involving 1MDB, the Malaysian state-run fund. (The fund is accused of being used by Malaysian politicians and others for personal financial gain. 1MDB is currently the subject of money laundering probes in at least six countries including the US, Singapore, Switzerland and, most recently, Australia.)

The modules will be made available to industry participants such as private bankers, compliance officers and auditors in the wealth management sector. When a person completes the training course, it counts towards the Client Advisor Competency Standards Continuing Professional Development requirement.

The programme will also commission papers and build up a library of case studies. The work will be featured on a 'knowledge centre' microsite and will appear alongside guides to 'best practice' in these fields, thought leadership articles, interviews, videos and recommended books.

Another feature will be fora for senior compliance decision makers, featuring international AML thought leaders.

WMI has formed an expert panel of international specialists with deep AML expertise in relation to the financial sectors of Singapore, Switzerland, US, UK and Australia. The panel is chaired by Jonathan Shih, head of compliance and operational risk control and global head of financial crime at UBS Wealth Management. The other expert panellists include: David James, HMRC Fiscal Crime Liaison Officer at the British High Commission in Singapore; Ian Wong, the deputy director for financial investigation in the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Government; Jon Page, the head of business consulting at BAE Systems Applied Intelligence; Larry Lam, the managing director of McGuire Asia; and Lem Chin Kok, the head of forensic operations at KPMG Singapore.

The programme is supported by the Association of Banks in Singapore and is designed to further the Monetary Authority of Singapore's ambition to improve standards all over the industry.

In April the MAS and the Commercial Affairs Department signed the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Industry Partnership (ACIP).