J. Edward “Ned” Conway became Executive Secretary of the Wolfsberg Group on 1 November 2024, succeeding Alan Ketley. With its 12 member banks, the Wolfsberg Group is a globally respected source of expertise on financial crime risk management, setting industry standards and building bridges between financial institutions and other stakeholders. The Basel Institute serves as Secretariat to the Group, which is now in its 25th year.

Improving the quality of intelligence we can extract from blockchain technologies could vastly increase our capacity to counter financial crimes involving crypto or virtual assets.

This Q&A builds on a first article on the concept of blockchain intelligence and practical use cases. This one focuses on the quality of current blockchain intelligence and the need for recognised standards and professional training to build capabilities in the public and private sectors.

Experts from all sectors agree we need more effective, efficient tools to counter the criminal use of blockchain technologies such as crypto-assets. Can better standards for blockchain intelligence provide an answer?

This will be a major focus of the inaugural Blockchain Intelligence Forum to be held in Bucharest on 10 April 2025, as part of the Digital Innovation Summit Bucharest 2025, of which the Basel Institute is a supporting organisation.

Given the increasing headwinds against global anti-corruption efforts blowing out of the United States in recent weeks, the EU’s commencement of trilogue negotiations regarding its proposed Directive on combating corruption has gone largely unnoticed.