Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- 1 Global standards, governance and the risk-based approach
- 2 The war on dirty money is mostly being lost in translation
- 3 How much do we really know about money laundering?
- 4 The obsession with defining money laundering
- 5 Money launderers and their superpowers
- 6 Global watchlists: money laundering risk indicators or something else?
- 7 Financial Intelligence Units or data black holes?
- 8 The ‘fingers crossed’ approach to money laundering prevention
- 9 Technology: the solution to all our AML/CFT problems
- 10 SARs: millions and millions of them
- 11 Information and intelligence sharing
- 12 Investigating money laundering
- 13 Prosecuting money laundering
- 14 Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: confiscation
- 15 Countering the financing of terrorism: money laundering in reverse
- 16 National security vs the threat of money laundering
- 17 Tax avoidance vs tax evasion
- 18 Corruption: where did all the good apples go?
- 19 AML/CFT supervision or tick-list observers?
- 20 Punishing AML/CFT failures or raising government funds?
- 21 A future landscape
- Conclusion: A call to arms
- Notes
- Index
9 - Technology: the solution to all our AML/CFT problems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- 1 Global standards, governance and the risk-based approach
- 2 The war on dirty money is mostly being lost in translation
- 3 How much do we really know about money laundering?
- 4 The obsession with defining money laundering
- 5 Money launderers and their superpowers
- 6 Global watchlists: money laundering risk indicators or something else?
- 7 Financial Intelligence Units or data black holes?
- 8 The ‘fingers crossed’ approach to money laundering prevention
- 9 Technology: the solution to all our AML/CFT problems
- 10 SARs: millions and millions of them
- 11 Information and intelligence sharing
- 12 Investigating money laundering
- 13 Prosecuting money laundering
- 14 Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: confiscation
- 15 Countering the financing of terrorism: money laundering in reverse
- 16 National security vs the threat of money laundering
- 17 Tax avoidance vs tax evasion
- 18 Corruption: where did all the good apples go?
- 19 AML/CFT supervision or tick-list observers?
- 20 Punishing AML/CFT failures or raising government funds?
- 21 A future landscape
- Conclusion: A call to arms
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Unveiled in 1949 to help France's large rural population the low-price ‘umbrella on four wheels’ the Citroen 2CV was designed to carry four people, transport 50 kg (110 lb) of farm goods to market at 50 km/h (30 mph) and across muddy, unpaved roads. One design feature was its ability to transport eggs across a freshly ploughed field without breakage. Yet interestingly, in all the marketing material, Citroen never decided to claim the 2CV could win Le Mans, the Dakar Rally or break the land speed record.
The authorsThere is money laundering: an exciting criminal offence attracting attention through prevention, investigation and prosecution activities, and depicted in numerous ways in blockbuster movies. Then there is AML/CFT compliance: the boring, monotonous daily routines and actions of so many involved in AML/CFT regulated entities. Today, many technology solutions or black boxes are pretending to be compliance, prevention, investigation and much more. However, with closer inspection and critical analysis, the reality is somewhat different and misleading. Here is why.
Great claims
The exaggerated claims by solution providers suggesting technology can prevent money laundering are, we think, overstated. Still, this has not stopped high-level advocates for the adoption of technology solutions in AML/CFT compliance formulating equally exciting assertions. The most prominent of these has to be the FATF. The FATF propose innovative technologies have the potential to make AML and counter terrorist financing measures faster, cheaper and more efficient’. This type of claim does not just stay with the FATF; claims go deeper into the now hugely commercialised world of AML/CFT compliance to excite potential adopters with costly, offthe-shelf solutions.
These products want to ‘revolutionise’ what is seen as a broken AML/CFT compliance regime, and the troubles associated with false positives – those annoying time-consuming beliefs that clients or customers are involved in money laundering or terrorism financing. Algorithms can apparently be trained, using data on financial transactions, to learn and therefore identify suspicious transactions ‘even in cases that might lack the usual red flags that a human designer would program into an automated system’. All of this is reinforced by industry experts who are understandably enthusiastic about how AI can seemingly create a more efficient and transparent AML/CFT compliance regime.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The War on Dirty Money , pp. 160 - 179Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2023