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Many AML Laws Remain ‘Counterproductive,’ Says U.K. Academic
printMost laws meant to combat money laundering have proven counterproductive and have failed to address the fact that dirty money is often cleaned in otherwise legitimate businesses, says Andrew Haynes, a professor in the School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications at the U.K.'s University of Wolverhampton. That's in part due to the fact that financial institutions inherently have little vested interest in investigating clients who aren't clearly committing crimes, said Haynes. When banks are forced to perform anti-money laundering (AML) checks on clients who aren't obviously breaking the law, the result is a glut of suspicious transaction reports that...
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The United States should overhaul its primary anti-money laundering law to allow government agencies and banks to better share data, a former U.S. State Department official told lawmakers Thursday.
The global banking sector has yet to adequately make use of the anti-money laundering data it collects from clients and transactions, experts at a summit in the United Kingdom said Thursday.
U.K. financial regulators will likely only get tougher on British banks that violate anti-money laundering laws in the coming year, possibly going so far as to prosecute individuals, according to Jonathan Fisher QC, a London-based barrister.
Amendments to the United Kingdoms anti-money laundering rules set to take effect next month will likely result in more pressure on individual bankers even as they broadly relieve regulatory burden.
Proposed amendments to Canada's primary anti-money laundering law would require banks and other companies to apply new prescriptive compliance controls in place of the risk-based policies currently used, say industry experts.
The effectiveness of Hong Kong's new anti-money laundering law will hinge largely on the willingness of the jurisdiction's regulators to enforce its new powers, according to former investigators and consultants.
A United Kingdom plan to exempt some small businesses from anti-money laundering obligations could mean more due diligence work for the financial institutions that bank them, say consultants.
A new Vatican anti-money laundering law and watchdog organization could do little to allay the concerns of European authorities about the city-state's secretive financial system, say analysts.
Russia's compliance with international anti-money laundering standards is likely to remain tenuous, according to Ethan S. Burger, a senior lecturer for the Faculty of Law and Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
The Ukrainian government is likely to pass anti-money laundering legislation in 2010 to avoid inclusion on an international blacklist, but will do little to enforce the laws, according to analysts.
Estimates on how much money is laundered in the United Kingdom are, at best, mere speculation, says Jacqueline Harvey, a professor at Newcastle upon Tyne, England-based Newcastle Business School.
Australian financial institutions that haven't complied with a 2007 anti-money laundering act should expect to be penalized going forward, according to the executive general manager of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre.
European and Asian governments must implement stronger due diligence standards, including the creation of databases on the assets of public officials, to root out corruption, a London-based non-profit organization said.
In an evaluation of Bulgaria's AML laws, released Wednesday by the regional AML watchdog Moneyval, the nation was cited for failing to accurately gauge the AML risk of nonprofit organizations and giving its financial institutions inadequate guidance on monitoring politically exposed persons.
Anti-money laundering requirements, part of a law passed in 2006, are being rolled out in stages by the country's chief financial regulator. The rules implemented on Wednesday represent the "most significant provision" of that effort, the regulator said.
Australias compliance with anti-money laundering and combating of terrorism financing recommendations is more than adequate, but it still lags in areas such as customer due diligence, according to a recently released Financial Action Task Force report.