Key developments include:
➡️ Professional Money Laundering: Underground banking and HOSSPs are increasingly organised as sophisticated, scalable and commercially operated cross-border professional money laundering networks;
➡️ Formal Financial Sector Integration: Professional money launderers increasingly use bank accounts, fintech platforms, payment service providers (PSPs), virtual International Bank Account Numbers (vIBANs), prepaid cards and virtual asset wallets as entry and exit points; and
➡️ Digital Hawala: Nearly 70% of respondents identified the integration of new technologies, including encrypted messaging, instant payments, virtual assets and stablecoins, AI-based tools and purpose-built ‘Hawala apps’.
✅ Firms should review their transaction and behavioural monitoring rules against their most recent business-wide risk assessment (BWRA) scrutinising whether their exposure to the ML and TF typologies highlighted by the FATF are sufficiently controlled for given their risk exposure.
💡 Plenitude’s Advisory & Transformation Services conduct coverage assessments, helping clients to proactively identify gaps or weaknesses in monitoring systems and controls. Visit our website for more information: https://www.plenitudeconsulting.com/services/advisory-and-transformation