Money Laundering Bulletin

Digital challenger Starling Bank must pay a UK£28,959,426 (US$38,448,705) penalty after it failed to comply with the terms of a voluntary requirement (VREQ) agreed with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) not to take on high and higher ML risk customers until it had fixed its AML model and for sanctions screening deficiencies.

The generals may be losing their grip on power in Myanmar but widespread concern over the authorities' ability to surveil opponents via the banking system has contributed to a growth in alternative remittance, all against a backdrop of strictures on international payments that accompany blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force. Poppy James& Keith Nuthall look into how the money keeps moving.

In response to anxiety among UK businesses regulated for anti-money laundering that sharing information on customers to prevent economic crime could breach data protection rules, the UK government legislated - in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, effective 15 January 2024 - to disapply civil liability in such circumstances, and has now followed up with practical guidance.

Taiwan's sovereignty as the Republic of China may remain unrecognised by all but 12 countries, but it is a full member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) and has been making significant progress on anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism, finds Keith Nuthall.

The latest Financial Action Task Force (FATF) mutual evaluation of Kuwait, published 8 October, finds the Gulf state has "basic" understanding of money laundering risk, at national level, and "low" appreciation of terrorist financing risk.

Small but fiercely independent, Andorra, San Marino and Monaco are working on how closely they might align their anti-money laundering regimes with the European Union model, with marked differences in the progress, as Andreia Nogueira, Brenda Dionisi and Keith Nuthalldiscover.

The European Union (EU) has widened activities that can spark EU sanctions to include so-called 'hybrid' threats, such as undermining electoral systems and hacking, which it says are employed by the Russian state and associated Russians.