At the opening session of the recent High Level Conference on Illicit Financial Flows: Interagency Cooperation and Good Tax Governance in Africa (Pretoria, South Africa, 14 to 15 July 2016), the South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan highlighted that Africa continues to lose large sums of money annually as a result of illicit financial flows estimated at USD 50 billion every year; the application of complex ownership structures has become the most commonly used means of hiding ownership of assets.

The Basel Institute released its fifth edition of the Basel Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index today. The Index is an annual ranking assessing the money laundering/terrorism financing risks of 149 countries. 

Experts from Basel Institute participated during a roundtable organised in Sofia, Bulgaria on 14 July 2016 by the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), a Bulgarian interdisciplinary public policy institute, on the topic: “Scope and implications of money laundering activities: institutional governance in the fight against money laundering in Bulgaria”. Basel Institute is a partner organisation with CSD under the Bulgarian Thematic Fund Security Project “Overcoming institutional capacity gaps to counter corruption and organised crime in Bulgaria”.

Today, Europol, INTERPOL, and the Basel Institute on Governance have formalised the establishment of a tripartite partnership for a working group on money laundering with digital currencies. The working group will aim to:

The FATF published today its assessment of Austria’s anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing of terrorism (CFT) regime in which Austria was found to have a solid AML framework but to fall short in its effective implementation.

Singapore demonstrates a strong anti-money laundering (AML) legislative framework but shows significant weaknesses in its effective implementation, according to a recent review by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The Basel Institute on Governance provides a comparative analysis illustrating how Singapore fares/compares against other countries evaluated by the FATF on the basis of its new assessment methodology. 

Today (October 31, 2016) the Nairobi based daily newspaper The Star, published an article written by Gretta Fenner, the Institute’s director, on recent and, in her view, positive developments in the fight against corruption in Kenya. The article explains how a change in tack led by management of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), and a new and vigorous focus on following the stolen cash rather than probing procedural irregularities are starting to have an impact.

Uganda commenced the National Risk Assessment (NRA) process in early 2016 using the World Bank’s NRA tool and methodology to identify, assess and mitigate its Money Laundering/Terrorism Financing risks. Experts of the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) have been providing technical assistance and throughout the process that is now on the brink of being successfully completed.

Basel Institute Chairman and criminal law expert Mark Pieth and Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz have just released their analysis of the issues revealed by the so-called “Panama papers”.

While the Panama Papers describe what was happening behind the secrecy, the Stiglitz and Pieth report entitled Overcoming the Shadow Economy focuses on what can and must be done, both by the international community and by the secrecy havens, to increase transparency.

Today (7 December 2016), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released its latest evaluation of Switzerland. According to this FATF report, Switzerland’s regulatory framework on anti-money laundering and terrorism financing (AML/CFT) is well developed, but its application shows certain weaknesses.