It is estimated that about £1.8tn is laundered globally each year, some 3% of total GDP. Of this amount, the UK has the second highest sum of money laundered each year, an estimate of around £88bn. The only country to see an even higher amount is the US, with £216.5bn. It is only fair that ensuring organisations have strong Anti Money Laundering (AML) controls in place to prevent financial crime is a high priority for the FCA and other regulators across the globe.
Here are just some of the money laundering fines that the FCA has imposed on financial institutions in the past couple of years:
The FCA have identified a range of failures, such as a lack of annual reviews on banks GIB held relationships with, flaws in NatWest Bank’s automated monitoring systems, long-standing weaknesses in Commerzbank’s automated tools for monitoring transactions and a lack of timely KYC checks. In most of the cases, the FCA has also determined that the institutions failed to establish appropriate policies and procedures.
The FCA concluded that GIB “failed to give staff adequate training on how to scrutinise transactions properly and did not establish appropriate procedures for staff” and that Commerzbank London failed to “have adequate policies and procedures in place when undertaking customer due diligence on clients”.
Many of these money laundering scenarios could have been prevented, or at least minimised, if these financial institutions had a robust compliance programme in place.
This is why financial institutions from different sizes and profiles are turning to RegTech and policy management technology to effectively create, manage, and disseminate their policies and procedures to their workforce. RegTech and policy management technology help organisations:
Is your policy lifecycle management programme robust and agile enough to assist you in your fight against financial crime and terrorism?
Here are some free resources that will help you assess your current stage and provide food for thought on how other institutions are upping their game when it comes to policy management: