The 13th Public Edition of the Basel AML Index highlights a gradual improvement in national systems to counter money laundering – at least in terms of technical compliance with global standards, and among countries with long-standing weaknesses. But the effectiveness of anti-money laundering systems in practice remains alarmingly low in the face of evolving threats from fraud and other complex, often transnational financial crimes.
The Basel AML Index – the Basel Institute’s ranking and risk assessment tool for money laundering risks around the world – will include indicators of fraud in its 2024 methodology update.
The changes reflect the growing significance of fraud as a predicate offence to money laundering and as a risk that regulated entities need to consider. Though definitions of fraud vary and data is both poor and inconsistent, the social and economic consequences of fraud make it impossible to ignore in any money laundering risk assessment.
Our recently released Basel AML Index 2023 says that countries need to supercharge their efforts to understand the evolving financial crime risks of new technologies – especially cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets.
Global money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks just keep on rising, according to the 2023 Public Edition of the Basel AML Index.
And that has real impact on people’s lives today – from well-funded terrorist attacks to trillions of dollars flowing out of countries through corruption and organised crime.
The Basel AML Index Expert Edition Plus subscription (free for practically all users outside the private sector) has introduced a new feature: an approach for predicting which jurisdictions are at risk of being placed on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “grey list” of "jurisdictions under increased monitoring".
The Basel AML Index – the Basel Institute’s global money laundering index and risk assessment tool – will see a small but important methodology update this year. The aim is to better reflect the progress of jurisdictions that have graduated from the so-called grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard setter for anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).
Progress in addressing money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risks remains paralysed in many countries, according to the latest release of the Basel AML Index.
The Basel AML Index is an independent ranking that assesses countries’ ML/TF risks and capacity to counter them. It draws on 18 indicators in five domains measuring different factors that contribute to high ML/TF risks.
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Basel AML Index launches API for easier integration into compliance and risk management systems
Companies and financial institutions around the world use the Expert Edition of the Basel AML Index to help evaluate money laundering/terrorist financing risks at the country level.
Smaller companies tend to use the Basel AML Index as a standalone geographic risk evaluation solution, as the dashboard enables quick access to 17 key indicators of money laundering/terrorist financing risk for 203 jurisdictions. Others apply it as an independent benchmarking tool to validate in-house risk assessments.
The Basel AML Index – the Basel Institute’s global money laundering index and risk assessment tool – is adding environmental crime data to its set of indicators of money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) risk. The data will come from the Global Organized Crime Index.
To explore what is holding back progress in combating money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) around the world, the 2021 Basel AML Index report examined data on money laundering vulnerabilities beyond the financial sector. Banks and other financial institutions bear the brunt of anti-money laundering AML/CFT supervision and attention, but perhaps we're missing weaknesses elsewhere?