“There’s danger in them there bills”

I was reminded recently when visiting some friends back home in the southern part of the States how kids say mildly darned things. I sat in the den of my friend’s home with the kids all gathered around me showing off my old TL 1 million bill that I like to carry with me. When I showed it to them, one young girl said: “My parents say that Turkey has a problem with money laundering. I think this bill could do with a wash.”

I had a flashback of the Art Linkletter show and how Art loved to get kids talking. A well-known quote of Art’s is “Kids say the darndest things!” Kids can make us laugh -- but pirating and money laundering are not laughing matters.

I tried to explain to the kids that money laundering has a different meaning. But she was right; the bill was getting pretty grubby looking. I began to explain to the kids that it really is all about illegally obtained money mostly through the drug trade, human trafficking and terrorist groups.

I continued by saying that money laundering is conducted by finding ways to channel or pass money surreptitiously through a person or business channels using bank deposits and transfers and maybe even by investments. Of course, I had to explain the big word -- and asked them to say it with me and repeat it a couple of times so they might remember it. The kids liked the sound of that word. I went into teacher mode: That’s right! sur·rep·ti·tious -- say it again!

I concluded saying, “Yep, there can be danger in them there bills!”

I received a brochure from my bank this past week announcing the new procedures using an international bank account number (IBAN) as of Jan. 1, 2010. Any electronic transfer will have to be done with your IBAN number. Banks in Turkey are gearing up for this new procedure, and if you use electronic banking to send money to other banks in different countries, you need to have an IBAN. You may be wondering what an IBAN is.

IBAN stands for international bank account number, and so far all bank account holders in Europe are required to provide a full IBAN when they fill in the beneficiary payee account details, or else their request will be rejected. An IBAN isn’t exactly the same as an account number -- it includes the country, bank, branch and account details.

Are you living or working abroad?

Are you in need of managing your finances in different currencies through electronic transfers?

It has been that for Americans you needed the American Bankers Association (ABA) routing number. An expat shared with me how she had tried to do a SWIFT transaction of funds between her British bank and her new bank in Canada. The British bank insisted on an IBAN, and the Canadian bank did not have that code.

Whatever nationality you are -- get ready as IBAN is coming in 2010.

So if you haven’t heard, well, I’d advise you to visit or call your bank and ask for more information.

This new procedure is supposedly more effective in tracing illegal transactions and decreases money laundering as well as other things.

I hope it is more effective than the new procedures bookstores faced a few years ago with the implementation of “bandrols” (hologram stickers). Every legitimate bookstore followed procedures and now has a “bandrol” on every book. Disappointingly, the battle against pirated books still exists. You still see the illegal book sellers in the streets with pirated books playing cat and mouse with you know who.

There certainly are no quick fixes. Neither pirating nor money laundering are problems that are going to go away soon. Clearly in a lot of cases officials can’t act fast enough, and there’s no limit to the things that can and should be done.