In 2019, Estonia achieved the lowest risk score out of the 125 countries in the Public Edition of the Basel AML Index, 2.68 out of 10. In fact, Estonia has consistently been among the top performers since 2012, when the Basel AML index was first calculated.

Money laundering risks in Malta have been in the headlines recently.

During his former position as Compliance Operations Manager at LafargeHolcim, compliance and communications professional Kyle Lewis worked closely with the Basel Institute on developing a new open-source search tool to help compliance officers spot and analyse links between individuals, organisations and criminal activities. He kindly provided this testimonial for the Basel Institute's Annual Report 2018.

There are still a few spaces available on a two-day FinTech AML Compliance course on cryptocurrencies and money laundering. The course is delivered by the Basel Institute in partnership with Swiss law firm MME and will take place on 10–11 December at MME's offices in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Basel Institute is collaborating with Nestor Advisors on a project to advise on and provide support for the improvement of the compliance management system of the Société Tunisienne de l’Electricité et du Gaz (STEG), Tunisia’s state-owned gas and electricity production and distribution company.

The International Centre for Collective Action (ICCA) has launched two projects to bolster the evidence base and business case for two different types of Collective Action initiatives: Integrity Pacts and Certification Initiatives.

With financial support from the KBA-NotaSys Integrity Fund, the projects involve analysis and sharing of lessons learned. Findings and new resources on Integrity Pacts and Certification Initiatives will be added to the ICCA’s B20 Collective Action Hub.

The trend among organisations with well-established anti-corruption compliance programmes is to integrate these into enterprise-wide risk management frameworks and set measurable indicators to ensure that their programmes remain fit for purpose. There is growing recognition that effective compliance contributes to a healthy business model and sustainable growth.

“Evolution to Revolution” was the theme of the year for the Basel Institute’s activities promoting Collective Action in 2018. Endorsement of anti-corruption Collective Action in 2018 by the B20 Argentina and UK Anti-Corruption Strategy supports growing acceptance of the concept as a useful tool to tackle bribery. Collective Action is gradually moving towards becoming a global norm.

We know who whistleblowers are: employees or others who raise a report relating to possible breaches of the law, government regulations or their company’s code of conduct. While whistleblowing itself is not hard to define, developing legal protection for whistleblowers in Switzerland has been a long saga that has now ground to a halt.