“If governments did not mislead their citizens so often, there would be less need for secrecy, and if leaders knew they could not rely on keeping the public in the dark about what they are doing, they would have a powerful incentive to behave better."

- Peter Singer

It is only the fifth month of the year yet several financial scandals have hugged the headlines of broadsheets in the Philippines.

In February, hackers successfully moved US $81 million from the Bangladeshi’s account with the Federal Reserve Bank to a Philippine universal bank. The funds could have finally found their way to casinos and elsewhere. The matter is still under investigation by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a supersecure system that banks use to authorize payments from one account to another. (One analyst describes SWIFT as the Rolls-Royce of payments networks.) Also probing on the heist are the Philippine senate and the Bangladeshi government.

Early April 2016, the burning issue on business news, print and electronic, was the 11.5 million documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, on the “secret or confidential” offshore financial transactions of world leaders, celebrities, and sports stars. Some of the who’s who and the elite of the world were named “beneficiaries” or “players”. The documents were supposed to have been obtained from anonymous source by a German daily and shared with more than 100 media groups by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Last April, it was reported that the Qatar National Bank’s (QNB) computer systems were hacked. The QNB released a statement thru its website that the cyber attack would have ”no financial impact” on its customers but there was admission that for the first time, its clients were targeted. The “data leak” may potentially expose the names, passwords, mobile phone numbers, credit card numbers, and international bank transactions of tens of thousands of customers.

Two common threads weave through the three major financial “episodes” - significant/valuable assets & information and the secrecy behind them. The adverse impacts of the leaks of these secret/confidential financial transactions & information have been the continuing concerns of sovereigns and regulators.

On April 22, the European Union Finance Ministers (ECOFIN) Council members agreed to undertake a pilot project for the automatic exchange of information on the “ultimate beneficial owners” following the letter by the so-called G5 (the UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy) manifesting the group’s intent to pursue such pilot project. The outcome of this pilot project may pave the way for the development of “a global standard and interlinked registries” containing full beneficial ownership information. The Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will be the prime-movers behind this development. European Commissioner Dombrovskis cited that the Commission will follow-up on the mandate “to explore ways to introduce disincentives for those who give advice in tax evasion planning and elaborate tax evasion schemes”. The European Commission also intends to have a revised proposal for the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, in the context of the fight against terrorism financing.

The advanced countries are always ahead in safeguarding the interests of economies and nations. One can only expect that other regional aggrupations and countries will subsequently adopt the world’s best practices to be worthy of membership in the league of nations.

Dr. Conchita L. Manabat is the President of the Development Center for Finance and a Trustee of the FINEX Development & Research Foundation. A past Chair of the International Association of Financial Executives Institutes (IAFEI), she now serves as the Chairperson of the Advisory Council of the said organization. She is also a member of the Consultative Advisory Group of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants. She can be reached at clm@clmanabat.com