With U.K. elections only two months away, Tory and Liberal Democrat lawmakers alike have been forwarding strategies to tackle tax evasion and other financial crimes. One consideration of the Labour Party: whether British officials have the proper resources to penalize wrongdoers.
The United Kingdom's National Crime Agency will test a new approach to handling suspicious activity reports in its efforts to combat rampant money laundering through British banks.
The U.K.'s bank regulator should clarify guidance proposed in November on how financial institutions should identify and prevent illicit activity, a lobbying group said in a letter published Tuesday.
The U.K.'s planned new regulator of banks and other financial institutions would impose tougher oversight than its predecessor, a series of proposals for the agency's forthcoming operations handbook show.
One out of every three British banks is unwilling to turn away customers with an "unacceptable" level of risk for money laundering, the United Kingdom's chief financial regulator said in a report Wednesday.