FSIs have always been on the front line of anti-money laundering efforts. But with the rise of digital channels, and the uncertainty generated by the pandemic, many organised criminals have been busy exploiting the anonymity offered by electronic transactions and digital onboarding to hide the evidence of their illicit activities, with corporate and business accounts offering the most convenient vehicle for money laundering.

And with estimates suggesting that transactions involving dirty money amount to €133 billion in the EU alone, it’s clear that corporate money laundering has become big business for the criminals. To keep up, regulators are stepping up their scrutiny of banks providing financial services to corporate entities, and imposing increased compliance burdens - and heavier sanctions- on those found to be facilitating money laundering.

As a result, FSIs need clear oversight and monitoring of the transactions flowing through corporate customer accounts, as well as efficient ways of differentiating between suspicious activity which should be flagged to investigators and false positive alerts.

To combat these challenges and reduce the risk of reputational damage and fines, many FSIs are exploring the potential of AI, machine learning and robotic process automation to build an entity centric view of AML risk.

During this webinar with an expert panel, we looked at some of the key challenges for FSIs in managing AML compliance in corporate finance as well as some of the new technological tools being used in the crackdown on organised crime.