THE HAGUE - Minister Wopke Hoekstra (Finance) wants banks worldwide to do much more to combat money laundering. He wants to help them with this, such as with better information exchange. Only in this way can money laundering be eliminated completely.

Hoekstra said this during his visit to Washington on Thursday, reports Financieele Dagblad.

Hoekstra is in Washington for a meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental organization that develops international anti-money laundering and terrorist financing guidelines.

The fact that last year around 16 billion euros were laundered in the Netherlands, according to Hoekstra, is "a very serious case". But it is not unique to the Netherlands, according to him. That is why he argues for cooperation between countries to tackle this.

He mentioned the affair with ING, which for many years violated rules concerning money laundering controls. Last year ING paid a settlement amount of 775 million euros for this.