The Dewan Rakyat (
House of Representatives) and the Dewan Negara (
Senate) of the Malaysian Parliament passed the
Money Services Business (Amendment) Bill 2024 (“
the Bill”) on 26 March 2024 and 3 April 2024 respectively. The Bill will now be presented to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong for Royal Assent. Thereafter, the Bill will become law upon its being gazetted and come into operation on a date to be determined by the Minister of Finance by notification in the
Gazette.
This article highlights the key amendments that will be made to the Money Services Business Act 2011 (“
the Act”) under the Bill.
1. Amendments to key terms
The following expressions will be changed throughout the Act:
The exemption of licensed banks (formerly defined as authorised dealers) from the provisions of the Act is maintained.
2. Facilitating the transfer of funds
A new definition of “facilitating the transfer of funds” is to be introduced to section 2 of the Act and is to include any one of the following activities:
3. Definition of “remittance business”
The definition of “remittance business” will be amended to include “the business of facilitating the transfer of funds”.
The effect of this amendment is two-fold.
First, a person who carries on any of the activities falling within the definition of “facilitating the transfer of funds” will be deemed to be carrying on “remittance business” and require a licence to carry on “money services business” under the Act.
Second, a person who carries on any activity within the said definition without a “money services business” licence will commit an offence and could be subject to prosecution under the applicable provisions of the Act.
4. Enhanced penalty
Section 4 of the Act presently provides that any person who carries on money services business
1 without a licence issued under the Act will on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding RM5.0 million
or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years
or to both.
The Bill will amend the penalty for this offence to introduce a mandatory term of imprisonment of not more than 10 years in addition to a fine of not less than RM50,000 but not more than RM5.0 million.
5. Forfeiture of property upon prosecution for an offence
The Bill introduces a new section 66A that empowers the court to order the forfeiture of property seized upon the offence being proved against the accused and the court is satisfied that the property is the subject matter of the offence or was used in the commission of the offence.
6. Clarification of section 86
Section 86 of the Act,
among others, provides that it is an offence for a person to abet or engage in a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence under the Act. The Bill introduces a new section 86(3) to state that the expressions “criminal conspiracy” and “abet” have the same meaning assigned to them in sections 120A and 107 respectively of the Penal Code. The amendment also introduces three illustrations of abetment.
7. Admissibility of evidence
The Bill introduces a new section 89A to provide for the admissibility of evidence in respect of any document, computer or other evidence obtained by the Bank, an examiner or an investigating officer under the Act in any court proceedings.
8. Amendment of Schedule
The Schedule sets out the provisions of the Act in respect of which administrative actions may not be commenced by Bank Negara Malaysia under section 75 of the Act. The Bill will delete nine of the provisions listed in the Schedule thus increasing the number of offences for which Bank Negara may initiate administrative action.
Other amendments
In addition to the amendments mentioned above, the Bill also updates references in the Act to legislation which have been introduced, amended or repealed since the Act came into operation on 1 December 2011. For example, the Financial Services Act 2013 has replaced, and in some instances, been added to, the references in the Act to the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989.
Lee Ai Hsian (Partner) of the Banking and Finance Practice of Skrine.