For two decades, the European Union wrote anti-money laundering rules and then watched twenty-seven member states enforce them twenty-seven different ways. Danske Bank, Wirecard and ABLV were not aberrations. They were the predictable output of a system in which supervision was national, ambition was European, and the gap between the two was where laundered money moved. The Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA) was built to close

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has censured CACEIS UK, an asset servicing bank, and secured a voluntary payment of £31.7m for clients of WealthTek LLP after the firm failed to act on clear indications that client assets were exposed to financial crime risk. CACEIS UK became WealthTek's sub-custodian in November 2020, when the firm was still trading as Vertus Asset Management LLP, taking on responsibility for safeguarding client assets. On three separate occasions the b

In January 2026, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) published a penalty notice imposing a £160,000 monetary penalty on Bank of Scotland plc for breaches of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The facts were unremarkable by the standards of sanctions enforcement. A designated Russian individual, subject to UK sanctions since 2017, opened a personal current account using a UK passport. The name on the passport differed from the OFSI Consolida

On 11 March 2026, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) lifted the restrictions on Revolut's UK banking licence, granting Revolut Bank UK Ltd full authorisation to operate as a bank in its home market. The announcement ended an application process that had begun in January 2021 and had, over the intervening five years, become a case study in the regulatory difficulty of licensing a global-scale neobank. Yet the granting of the licence does not draw a line under Revolut's

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has set out an ambitious agenda for 2026/27, with card fees, APP fraud and wider payments reform at the centre of its annual plan. Published on 26 March 2026, the programme signals a regulator intent on pushing ahead where competition remains weak, while maintaining strong consumer protections and supporting the next phase of innovation in UK payments. A major priority is card fees, where the PSR plans to press on with action over both cros

In November 2023, the United States imposed a record $4.3 billion settlement on Binance. It was the largest penalty ever levied against a cryptocurrency exchange. The message was unambiguous: anti-money laundering (AML) controls were non-negotiable, and financial crime carried consequences. Yet less than two years later, President Trump pardoned the company’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, who had pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering on the world’s largest crypto platform. T

On 26 January 2026, the Home Secretary published a policing reform white paper that proposed the most significant restructuring of UK law enforcement in nearly two centuries. At its centre was the creation of a National Police Service (NPS), a single national force that would absorb the National Crime Agency (NCA), Counter Terrorism Policing and Regional Organised Crime Units into one organisation. The white paper, titled From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, desc

On 22 January 2026, the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee published a stark verdict on the state of artificial intelligence in UK financial services. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Bank of England and HM Treasury, the Committee concluded, are not doing enough to manage the risks presented by AI. By adopting a wait-and-see approach, the authorities are exposing consumers and the financial system to potentially serious harm. The Committee’s Chair, Dame Meg

Artificial intelligence has become the new backbone of financial crime compliance. Institutions that once relied on human analysts now lean heavily on machine learning to detect anomalies, flag high-risk clients, and predict suspicious behaviour before it happens. Yet behind the promise of speed and precision lies a growing ethical dilemma. The same systems that claim to reduce bias and human error can just as easily reproduce them, only faster and with greater opacity. The q

The Financial Conduct Authority has imposed a £44 million fine on Nationwide Building Society for significant failures in its financial crime systems and controls, reinforcing the regulator’s uncompromising stance on anti-money laundering governance across the UK banking sector. The penalty relates to weaknesses that persisted between October 2016 and July 2021, during which Nationwide was unable to effectively identify, assess, monitor, or manage money laundering risks withi

AI-generated fable remix: the tortoise plays it safe, the robot hare bolts ahead, but who is the ultimate winner? Generative AI, once a...

Fraud is no longer the work of lone actors exploiting isolated weaknesses. In today’s digital economy, financial crime has evolved into a...