OJK Asks Banks To Supervise Customer Profiles And Accounts To Avoid Online Gambling

Deputy Commissioner of Law and Investigation of the Financial Services Authority Rizal Ramadhani asked banks to get to know the customer's profile better and supervise their account transactions as an effort to prevent gambling transactions, especially online gambling.

"Regarding online gambling, it is the principle of introducing customers, opening accounts is actually the most important thing. So, OJK prohibits all financial transactions for online gambling," said Rizal in Badung Regency, Bali, quoted from Antara, Thursday, August 31.

Rizal conveyed this in a socialization event regarding the criminal acts of the financial services sector to the police and the prosecutor's office.

This socialization, he said, is to increase understanding related to the prevention of criminal acts in the financial services sector with participants from the police and prosecutors in the Bali jurisdiction.

Also present at the activity were Deputy Head of the Bali High Prosecutor's Office, Ahelya Abustam, Director of LJK Supervision Ananda R. Mooy, Head of the Financial Services Sector Investigation Department Tongam L. Tobing, and Bali Police Chief represented by the Director of Special Economic Crimes at the Bali Regional Police, Kombes Pol. Roy Marulamrata Sihombing.

Rizal emphasized that banks must recognize the profile of their customers. If customer transactions are suspected of being online gambling, they must be monitored.

"Actually, online gambling is not a common crime, it is a concern, a prohibition on facilitating online gambling activities like this. Online gambling when it involves bank accounts, we ask to close it," he said.

Regarding the anticipation of online gambling that damages the mentality of this nation, according to Rizal, it is not too difficult.

"It's easy. If the account is cut, it can be solved. The problem is, how far can the bank see the funds for gambling," he said.

In this 2-day activity in Bali, he said, there were two agendas discussed, namely first coordination and socialization with the police and prosecutors in the analogy of understanding perceptions related to legal data collection in financial institutions.

The second agenda met with players in the financial services industry to prevent this from happening in financial institutions.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Financial Services Sector Investigation Department, Tongam L. Tobing, said that banks must be able to get to know their customers so that they know whether the funds are for gambling or others.

Deputy Head of the Bali High Prosecutor's Office, Ahelya Abustam, said that there are a number of banking cases currently being handled, namely three cases in Kajati, two in the Badung Kejari, and six cases in Tabanan.

"In the police, said the Director of Special Economic Crimes at the Bali Regional Police, Kombes Pol. Roy Marulamrata Sihombing, the focus is organizing and playing online gambling.

According to him, online gambling is not an investment so the problem is the extent to which banks can monitor the customers' purpose of opening accounts to play online gambling or to save.

"So, the circulation of money in the account must be monitored. We also sometimes if we consider a transaction, we work with the bank to find out the customer's profile. Indeed, this is not a simple problem, this must be explored," he said.

From the data quoted, PPATK noted, the circulation of money in the accounts of online gamblers reached IDR 81 trillion in January 'November 2022. This figure increased significantly by 42.1 percent when compared to 2021 of IDR 57 trillion.

The socialization revealed that financial crimes that have utilized digital access so far have not been able to be suppressed optimally. Thus, it is necessary to have a common perception so that case handling can run well.