What Is Anti-Money Laundering (AML)?

Anti-m🌸oney laundering is an international web of laws, regulations, and procedures aimed at uncovering money that has been disguised as legitimate income. For centuries, governments and law enforcement agencies have tried to fight crime by following the money. In modern times, that comes down to anti-money laundering (AML) laws and 🧜activities.

Money laundering is the concealment of the origins of money gained from crimes, including tax evasion, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:public corruption. It also includes money being illegal🅷ly routed to terrorist organizations.

Anti-money laundering regulations have had an impact on governments, financial institutions, and even individuals around the world.

Know Your Customer (KYC)

Regulatory compliance at financial institutions starts with a process often called Know Your Customer (KYC). KYC determines the identity of new customers and whether their funds originated from a legitimate source.

Money laundering can be divided into three steps:

• Depositing illicit funds into a financial system
• "Layering," or making a series of transactions, usually repetitive and voluminous, to obfuscate the illicit origin of the funds
• "Cleaning" and "washing" the funds by using them to buy real estate, stocks, commercial investments, and other legitimate assets

The🐎 KYC process aims to stop money laundering at the first step—when a customer 🐟attempts to deposit money.

Financial institutions screen new customers against lists of parties that pose a higher-than-average risk of money laundering: criminal suspects and convicts, individuals and companies under economic sanctions, and politically exposed people, encompassing foreign public officials, their family members, and close associates.

Customer Due Diligence (CDD)

Throughout the account’s lifetime, financial institutions must conduct customer due diligence (CDD)—the prac💫tice of maintaining accurate and up-to-date records of transactions and customer information for regulatory compliance and potential investigations.

Certain customers may be added over time to sanctions and other AML watchlists, warranting checks for regulatory risks and compliance issues on an ongoing basis.

According to the U.S. Treasury’s 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩ꦍ网:Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the four core requirements of CDD in the United States are:

• Identifying and verifying the customer’s personally identifiable information (PII)
• Identifying and verifying the identity of beneficial owners with a stake of 25% or more in a company opening an account
• Understanding the nature and purpose and compiling risk profiles of customer relationships
• Monitoring suspicious transactions and updating customer information

CDD may try to uncover and counter money laundering patterns such as layering and structuring, also known as “smurfing”—br🌺eaking up large transactions into smaller oꦉnes to dodge reporting limits.

For example, financial institutions have instituted AML holding periods that force deposits to remain in an account for a minimum of days before they can be transferred elsewhere.

If patterns and anomalies indicate money laundering activities, suspicious transactions in U.S. jurisdictions must be reported in 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Suspicious Activity Reports (SA🤪Rs) to relevant financial agencies fo⛄r further investigation.

Anti-Money Laundering in the U.S.

AML regulations in the U.S. expanded after the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) was passed in 1970. For the first time, financial institutions were required to report cash depos🦹its of more than $10,000, collect identifiable information of 💖financial account owners, and maintain records of transactions.

A💟dditional legislation was passed in the 1980s amid increased efforts to fight drug trafficking, in the 1990s to enhance financial surveillance, and in the 2000s to cut off funding for terrorist organizations.

Banks, brokers, and dealers now follow a complex regulatory framework of conducting due diligence on customers and tracking and reporting suspicious transactions. A written AML compliance policy must be implemented and approved in writing byꦑ a member of 🎐senior management and overseen by an AML compliance officer.

Recent Expansions

The —the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. AML regulations since the Patriot Act passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001—subjected cryptocurrency exchanges, arts and antiquities dealers, and private companies to the same CDD requirements as financial institutions.

The 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Corporate Transparency Act, a claus🌃e of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, eliminated loopholes for shell companies to evade anti-money laundering m𒁃easures and economic sanctions.

FinCEN, a U.S. Department of the Treasury bureau, issues guidance and regulations that interpret and impl🦂ement the BSA and other AML laws. FinCEN’s guidance and regulations provide detailed instructions for fiജnancial institutions on how to comply with AML requirements.

In addition to these federal laws, many states have their own AML statutes and regulations. These state laws often mirror the federal requirements but may include additional provisions𒀰.

International Anti-Money Laundering

The European Union (EU) and other jurisdictions adopted similar anti-money laundering measures to the U.S. anti-money laundering legislation. Enforcement assumed greater global prominence in 1989 when a group of countries and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) formed the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The FATF is an intergovernmental body that devises and promotes the🌳 adoption of international standards to prevent money laundering. In October 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, FATF’s mandate grew to combat ter♈rorist financing.

Those sta♒ndards—the FATF’s 40 Recommendations—provide a framework for AML and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regulations and policies in more than 190 jurisdictions worldwide, covering CDD, transactiඣon monitoring, reporting of suspicious activity, and international cooperation.

Other important international organizations in the fight against money laundering include the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations (U.N.), and programs include the Council of the European Union’s Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD) and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervis🐟ion’s Customer Due Diligence (CDD) for Banks.

The IMF has pressed member countries to comply with international norms thwarting terrorist financing. The U.N. added AML provisions to address money laundering associated with drug trafficking in the 1998 Vienna Convention, with international organized crime in the 2001 Palermo Convention, and with political corruption in the 2005 Meridian Convention.

The Council of the European Union’s AMLD, a directive that sets 💫out AML/CFT requ🅺irements for all EU member states, has been amended several times to reflect the changing risks of money laundering and terrorist financing. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s CDD for Banks provides detailed recommendations for banks on how to identify and verify the identity of their customers.

Anti-Money Laundering and Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency has drawn increasing attention among AML profes🧜sionals and regulatory bodies. Virtual coins provide anonymity to users, presenting criminals with a convenient way to store and move money.

According to cryptocurrency and blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, addresses connected to illicit activity sent nearly $39.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2022, up 141% from 2021. This figure dropped to $24.2 billion in 2023, but it was still a significant amount of money (it was only about 0.78% of all illicit funds).

The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency markets makes it challenging to implement an🐽d enforce AML regulations. Traditional AML frameworks designed for centralized financial institutions were not adequate in the past for the decentralized cryptocurrency ecosystem, but regulators have made significant progress in addressing the weaknesses that were present.

Blockchain analysis and monitoring tools enable financial institutions and law enforcement to identify and investigate suspicious cryptocurrency transactions. Crypto forensic services like Chainalysis, Elliptic, and TRM Labs have the technology to flag 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:crypto wallets, exchanges, and transactions tied to designated terrorist organizations, sanctions lists, political groups, government actors, a๊nd organized crime such as hacking, ransomware, scams, and contraband trafficking on darknet markets.

Inside the U.S.

In the U.S., cryptocurrencies are largely an unregulated market, and few regulations explicitly target the asset class by name. Instead, AML enforcement actions, such as those against crypto exchanges Binance and FTX, have been prosecuted under existing laws and statutes, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Only under the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 did U.S. companies become legally required to comply with financial screening regulations that apply to fiat currencies and tangible assets. Businesses that exchange or transmit virtual currencies now qualify as regulated entities and must register with FinCEN, adhere to AML and CFT laws, and report suspicious customer information to financial regulators.

Outside the U.S.

More formal rules on intervening in virtual currency money laundering are expected to be introduced in the U.S. and abroad. Recent steps include an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposal and several European bills for financial platforms to report digital asset payments and transactions to national and transnational regulatory bodies, law enforcement agencies, and industry stakeholders.

On the global stage, the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Financial Action Task Force (FATF𓃲) Travel Rule, an international AML framework that would require collect♎ing and sharing beneficiary information for cross-border cryptocurrency flows, is being closely watched and gaining traction among regulatory bodies worldwide.

Several countries have implemented or are implementing the FATF Travel Rule in their civil and criminal codes to increase the transparency and accountability of cryptocurrency transactions.

The Bottom Line

Governments ha🍸ve evolved their approach to money laundering deterre🐼nce by establishing and revising regulatory controls that elicit proactive participation from financial institutions. Anti-money laundering is crucial for safeguarding the financial system from crimes.