Money laundering is the oxygen that criminal networks breathe to
survive. And in doing so, they'll creatively bypass regulatory
barriers that are both watered down and arrive years-too-late. The
implementation of the EU's 5th Money Laundering
Directive (5MLD) is the latest in a global march of regulatory
guidelines that attempt to play catch-up with increasingly adept
money launderers and the criminals they support. Since the Global
Financial Crisis, regulations like 5MLD attempt to tighten the
noose around money laundering funnels with stricter definitions of
client risk and lowering the threshold for the application of
enhanced due diligence.
But for many financial institutions, providing a higher level of
investigation on their Clients is not a means to an end, but an end
in itself, as long as it narrowly satisfies that compliance
checkbox of "doing more."
