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For the notaries and the Cadastre Committee of the Republic of Armenia, in the cases provided for by law regarding donations, it is proposed to establish a duty to submit reports to the RA Central Bank - the authorized body. The draft law on Making Amendment and Addendum to the Law on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing was debated in the second reading at the regular sitting of the NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs on October 16.

The necessity for the legal regulations is that the authorized body or the notaries that approve and register a donation transaction in their reports submitted to the authorized body in the prescribed manner must also present information on all donation transactions in order to assess the risks as a result of their monitoring, as well as in individual cases for preventing or identifying money laundering cases.

The key-rapporteur, the RA Deputy Minister of Justice Ara Mkrtchyan stated that no proposals were presented during the period from the first to the second reading.

According to him, with the adoption of the draft, it is expected that mechanisms will be created to manage the risks regarding donation transactions, as a result, the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing will become more effective.

The Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs Gevorg Papoyan, presenting statistical data, stated that according to the data of the first half of 2020, about 20 thousand sales transactions were carried out, of which 6 thousand were through donations, and, according to the data of the first half of 2023, the number of donation transactions has doubled.

According to him, certain banks charge interest from these transactions in order to provide a service, that’s why many of our citizens prefer to make sales transactions through donations.

It was noted that there will be working debates with the officials of the RA Central Bank in the near future regarding the issue.

The Committee endorsed the draft law.