#rethinkcompliance Blog

Traditional AML segmentation methods often fall short when it comes to truly understanding customer behavior. Regulatory expectations are shifting toward more refined and explainable approaches that go beyond simple thresholds. By applying statistical clustering techniques, compliance teams can detect risks with greater precision, reduce false positives, and strengthen their AML programs – all without relying on AI.

Enhancing the resilience of the risk and compliance program has become a growing requirement among auditors and regulators, as reflected in numerous legislative frameworks. The challenge resides in successfully transitioning to a digital format while achieving efficiency amidst ever growing volatility. The implementation of automation, alongside artificial intelligence and effectively coordinated policies and procedures, contributes significantly to the optimization of this process.

It’s time to take financial crime risk assessment to the next level and overcome the limitations of the traditional approaches. Let’s unleash the potential of advanced technology to transform the efficiency and effectiveness of our financial crime prevention strategies.

In this blog post, I would like to provide an outlook on 2023 and the following years, this means the near future of our domain that is dedicated to fighting financial crime. As always with such outlooks, this one does not claim to be complete, but is a mixture of subjective perception and observation and objective analysis.

In April 2013, an outcry went through the media when over 1,000 people lost their lives in a building collapse of a textile factory in India. The affected workers had previously discovered cracks in the building but were forced to continue working. The question of who was to blame and who was responsible was in the air.

Much is being written about and reported on the topic of supply chain compliance, whether this be the German Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz (LkSG/Supply Chain Act), the corresponding EU directive that is in preparation, or the extraterritorial laws that have been valid internationally for some time and also affect the supply chain such as the UK Bribery Act (UKBA) or the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

On August 25, 2022 the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published the final report ("Mutual Evaluation Report (MER)") on the audit of Germany. As a result, it should be noted that Germany has implemented considerable reforms over the past five years to better detect and combat money laundering activities and terrorism financing. These reforms are bearing fruits. However, further efforts are needed to optimize the effectiveness of prevention measures.

The fundamental concept of “foreign fighters” is not a modern-day innovation; historically, fighters from abroad have participated in several civil wars. A recently published joint report by Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) and Global Center on Cooperative Security attempted to explore the nuances of behavioural and financial profiles of FTFs in Southeast Asia by gathering and utilising financial intelligence by the Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) across this region to analyse and combat the catalytic effect of FTFs on terrorist activities.