TORONTO — An international organization that tracks the funding of terrorism and terrorist groups will be finding a home in Canada's financial capital.

In an effort to put the country in the forefront of the fight against terrorism financing, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced Friday that the Egmont Group will be headquartered in Toronto.

Formed in Brussels in 1995, the Egmont Group brings together more than 100 investigation units, including ones from the U.S., Cayman Islands and Korea.

The members share information about suspicious financial transactions that may be linked to terrorist cells, and swap investigative techniques and strategies.

The government will spend $5 million over the next five years to help Egmont - named after the venue of the first meeting -- set up a permanent office.

In addition to providing a home base to Egmont, Flaherty announced that a Canadian would be taking over the presidency of the Financial Action Task Force -- another international body that has been developing international standards for choking off money laundering and funding for terrorists.

Frank Swedlove, a former assistant deputy minister for financial sector policy at the Department of Finance, will assume the position later this month.

He'll be charged with expanding membership to China, India and South Korea.

Flaherty said the measures will allow Canada to play a larger role in "countering the criminal abuse of the international financial system."

"One of the best ways of putting these criminals out of business is to cut off the funds they must have in order to finance their acts of terrorism," he said.

Egmont, which convenes about three times a year, has never had a home base and has kept a fairly low profile.

But in the last few years it has started to formalize itself in order to have a more permanent role in combating financial crimes, explained Horst Intscher, who heads Canada's Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre, known as Fintrac, a member of Egmont.

He said one of Egmont's goals will be to bring in new members.

Between four and six people will work out of the Toronto office, which will largely play a secretariat role, meaning it will provide administrative and research support to Egmont members.

"It does not itself hold any operational information," said Intscher.

While Egmont encourages co-operation, members are limited in what information they can share depending on the laws of the country they operate within.

"(Canada's information) is subject to a very stringent regime that's defined in our statute," Intscher said.

Privacy laws limit Fintrac to sharing only very narrow information on suspects, such as bank account numbers, names of account holders and dates of suspicious transactions.

Despite those limitations, Fintrac said last November it had unearthed more than $2 billion in suspicious financial transactions - including $180 million linked to the financing of terrorism - over the previous year.

Intscher said this year's figure will be even greater.