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Closing loopholes in anti-money laundering frameworks is a key priority for governments worldwide today. Countries such as the US have made vital progress in recent years towards improving anti-money laundering policies but there is still work to do. This is reflected in the changes that are continually being made, such as an announcement in December last year by the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan relating to the ENABLERS Act. The Establishing New Authorities for Business Laundering Enabling Risks to Security (ENABLERS) legislation is designed to empower the Treasury to require certain parties, such as those who form companies or manage money for a third party, to ensure that basic money laundering protocols under the Banking Secrecy Act are in place. Sullivan announced support for the ENABLERS bill during the opening ceremony of the 2022 International Anti-Corruption Conference.

You may or may not have heard the term 'snow washing.' This is being used to refer to the money laundering that takes place within Canada's borders, so big has the issue become. The reason that snow washing has become such a popular phenomenon for criminals looking to launder illicit money is because Canada has opaque corporate reporting laws that have made it possible for companies looking to launder money to do so easily, turning the country into a money laundering hotspot. It also has a huge and abundant economy where there are lots of genuine transactions taking place and this makes it much easier to hide the laundered transactions behind the legitimate ones. According to the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada it is estimated that around $45 billion to $113 billion is laundered in Canada annually.

The latest intelligence suggests that around $2 trillion is being laundered annually and financial crime is increasing by the year. This is a crime that drives other crimes and is far from victimless - the most vulnerable are often exploited and money laundering can undermine the very fabric of the societies that it exists in. Which is why it is becoming so vital to find better solutions for anti-money laundering compliance and data sharing and technology are going to have a key part to play in this.

In the summer of 2021, amendments made to regulations under Canada's Proceeds of Crime Money Laundering & Terrorism Financing Act (PCMLTFA) of 2019 came into force, introducing a wealth of new changes designed to combat financial crime. Among the changes are a broader range of requirements for the ways in which reporting entities must track, verify, and report on financial transactions. The regulations have been designed to have very wide application, from banks and money service businesses to a range of other enterprises, including casinos and virtual currency exchanges. All the signs from the Canadian regulator in recent years have pointed to an enhanced commitment to ensuring compliance, bringing violators to justice and handing out fines. Which means that - for all the businesses affected - it has been crucial to improve compliance programmes and monitoring systems.

A new report from the US Treasury has identified just how much more oversight is required in the fintech sector to help ensure AML Compliance. The report - "Assessing Impacts of New Entrant Non-Bank Firms on Competition in Consumer Finance Markets" - highlights how the fintech market is creating a wealth of new opportunities and advantages for consumers but also many loopholes in security. Consumer protection and market integrity, in particular, are at risk from the practices that currently exist in the fintech sector. In order to help protect consumers and ensure sustainable competition, the Treasury report has identified that increased oversight of consumer financial activities of non-banks is going to be vital for AML Compliance going forwards.

The beneficial ownership database that is planned in the US to further improve AML Compliance is causing more than a few ripples. The full set of rules that will govern the database have yet to be released but its purpose would be to create a resource that identifies the true or "beneficial" owners of legal entities such as companies or trusts. One of the biggest obstacles to improving AML Compliance response is the fact that it's been historically possible for those funneling illicit funds to remain hidden. Abuse of shell companies is well known as the reason why money laundering has been so easy in the past. So the database is, in principle, a good idea. However, a number of compliance professionals have voiced concerns about it, mainly that it could create an even heavier compliance burden that will be more difficult to fulfill.

The Swedish gaming authority has been cracking down on compliance failures in recent years and continues to work to enforce an anti-money laundering regime in the region. Spelinspektionen has been particularly critical of the AML Compliance Failures of Pinbet, ATG and Kindred all of which were under scrutiny by the regulatory authorities in investigations that began back in autumn 2021. Each of the investigations looked at a number of customers of these companies and analyzed the way in which AML Compliance had been implemented. The investigations found a range of AML Compliance Failures, for example at a Kindred subsidiary that was investigated, it was found that repeated alerts were being generated about one customer but these were never investigated further as long as the customer was winning. At ATG the regulator found that information on taxable income had only been collected for three customers and that most of the customers investigated had made large deposits without the origin of these ever being checked.

Early in December last year, the Dutch Co-operative bank Rabobank announced that it was under investigation by the public prosecutors in the Netherlands as a result of failures in AML compliance. Rabobank is one of the three biggest banks in the Netherlands and its competitors have already been issued with huge fines for violations like this. ABN AMRO, for example, was fined £574 million in 2021 and ING Group $900 million in 2018. So, the fact that the bank is about to go through a similar process doesn't bode well for Rabobank.

In December 2022 the European Banking Authority launched a public enquiry around guidelines aimed at the risks involved in providing access to financial services in the context of money laundering and terrorist financing. The purpose of the guidelines is to ensure free and fair access to financial services for all users and that no one is being denied the financial services that they need for reasons that aren't valid. We all need access to basic financial products - this is one of the foundations of modern life and something that most of us today take for granted.