Prevention of Money Laundering: The Practical Day‐to‐Day Problems and Some Solutions

It has been a truism that there is no system that is completely foolproof and no control unbeatable, given the right resources. Then a few weeks ago the author read that the only way to ever overcome the problems of financial crime was to develop in all organisations a ‘bullet‐proof prevention culture’. What a wonderful idea to have a culture which would prevent totally all forms of financial crime including, most importantly, money laundering. But what was actually meant by ‘bullet‐proof’? In this case it was probably meant to indicate a system so designed as to prevent anything penetrating its defences. There are, however, plenty of examples in history of supposedly bullet‐proof armour failing. So the truism was right all along and while the ultimate goal must be to deter all fraudsters and money launderers from using an organisation's services it is essential to be practical and recognise that this is an idealistic aim. No system of prevention can be both foolproof and also provide quick accessible service to the vast majority of customers who are perfectly upright and honest law‐abiding people.