FCA Anti-Money Laundering Annual Report 2018/2019
Regulatory Updates | 09/07/19
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published its Anti-Money Laundering Annual Report 2018/2019 (AML Report). The AML Report is intended to complement the FCA’s wider annual report for the same period. In the AML Report the FCA summarises its contribution to international standard-setting through the Financial Action Task Force and other bodies, such as the Anti-Money Laundering Expert Group of the Basel Committee and the Anti-Money Laundering Committee of the Joint European Supervisory Authorities. The FCA also contributed to the FATF’s Mutual Evaluation Report for the UK, which was published in December 2018. The FCA goes on to explain its risk-based approach to financial crime supervision, and how it deploys the tools at its disposal. In particular it provides details on its October 2018 thematic review of risks in the e-money sector and its June 2019 thematic review of money laundering risks in the capital markets sector.
On information gathering, the FCA explains that it is becoming more data driven, making use of different information sources. An example of this is the Annual Financial Crime Data Return, which was introduced in 2017 and for which the FCA published details from the first year of submissions in November 2018.
Other work highlighted in the AML Report includes:
• the May 2018 international anti-money laundering and financial crime techsprint held by the FCA, and a planned follow-up techsprint, looking at how new technology can be used more effectively to combat money laundering and financial crime; and
• the creation in 2018 of the Office of Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS) within the FCA and the first year of FCA supervisory assessment of Professional Body AML Supervisors.
