Amendments to the United Kingdom's anti-money laundering rules set to take effect next month will likely result in more pressure on individual bankers even as they broadly relieve regulatory burden. The U.K.'s HM Treasury proposed changes in July that it believed would encourage businesses subject to anti-money laundering (AML) rules "to focus their resources in an effective and proportionate way, commensurate to the risks they face, as opposed to taking a tick-box based approach to compliance." On Monday, British officials submitted the amendments, which will exempt debt purchasers and non-lending credit unions from certain AML duties, to lawmakers. The amendments,...
U.K. financial regulators will likely only get tougher on British banks that violate anti-money laundering laws in the coming year, possibly going so far as to prosecute individuals, according to Jonathan Fisher QC, a London-based barrister.
Most laws meant to combat money laundering have proven counterproductive and have failed to address the fact that dirty money is often cleaned in otherwise legitimate businesses, says Andrew Haynes.
A United Kingdom plan to exempt some small businesses from anti-money laundering obligations could mean more due diligence work for the financial institutions that bank them, say consultants.
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