By LAURA LYNOTT, Senior Correspondent
TOP GLOBAL law enforcement chiefs and banking AFC leaders will meet at a PPPs forum at this year’s European Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2024 (EAFCS).
The public and private officials from across the EU, UK and US will gather at the special Roundtable event on ‘PPPs in FinCrime and Asset Recovery.’
“This is an invitational roundtable which is a gathering on the fringes of ‘European Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2024,'” confirmed Stephen Rae from organisers, AML Intelligence.
“The roundtable is about driving forward the Public Private Partnership or P3 approach to tackling financial crime. You can see from the most recent Wolfsberg report that PPPs are and always will be the answer to a problem as complicated and global as money laundering and financial crime,” he said.
‘FATF has identified asset recovery as an immense tool in the armoury of law enforcement. It’s about how this can be iterated internationally and also in the crypto domain’
Participants include law enforcement, tax and customs leaders from within the EU, the UK and also from the United States representing the public sector. On the private side are FCC leaders from European banking and fintech.
“We will be producing a white paper on the outcomes of the roundtable. It’s all about fresh and new initiatives to break down the silos within organisations and on the global stage,” Stephen said.
Greater emphasis on asset recovery is also an area that is being explored at the roundtable. “FATF has identified asset recovery as an immense tool in the armoury of law enforcement. It’s about how this can be iterated internationally and also in the crypto domain,” Stephen added.
The invitational-roundtable is open to senior banking leaders attending the summit and international law enforcement chiefs.
The white paper will be published following the May 16 summit.
The underlying theme for EAFCS2024 is building out the transatlantic network of PPPs in fighting global financial crime.
Earlier this week the Wolfsberg Group called on law enforcement to share information on terrorists with financial institutions to help disrupt terror financing.
PPPs in FinCrime
The Wolfsberg Group – which represents 12 global banks – is seeking “the provision of official lists of suspected terrorists and terrorist organisations on a globally co- ordinated basis by the relevant competent authority in each jurisdiction.”
The banks are demanding feedback from law enforcement on the usefulness of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).
They are also seeking to share information between banks on suspicions. The report wants financial institutions (FIs) “to share actionable information securely about suspicious and/or unusual transactions with other FIs, where there is a legitimate and proportionate interest in the prevention or detection of terrorist financing.”
The banks want “to maintain information relevant to mitigating terrorist financing risk within their own databases and to share such information within their own groups.”
Morever FIs and their employees should have “protection from civil liability for relying on such information, where such protection currently does not exist.”
These are among the calls made in a document released today by the group seeking greater PPPs in AML/CFT.
When screening the report says banks need to balance legitimate risk mitigating activity, where decisions not to offer certain products and services may be made in the interests of managing financial crime risk, including terrorist financing, against the importance of access to the financial system for individuals and communities.
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