This is how to achieve a clean economic recovery that combats organized crime

Criminals have adapted quickly to thrive in the economic environment created by the pandemic, exploiting the crisis to weave themselves into the legitimate economy. This undermines the economic recovery and can weaken public institutions. Given that money laundering is the engine of organized crime, if access to money laundering services was removed, criminals would not be able to make use of their profits. This offers a good lever to stamp out organized crime.

The EU has launched an Action Plan for a comprehensive Union policy on preventing money laundering and terrorism financing, to address the issue. The plan can support an economic recovery that works for citizens across the globe, rather than lining the pockets of international criminals.

The timing of this Action Plan is recognition that financial crime is pervasive and weaving its way into a larger number of EU sectors. At the start of the pandemic, Europol demonstrated in ‘Catching the virus: cybercrime, disinformation and the COVID-19 pandemic’ that cybercriminals were using the COVID-19 pandemic to target communities. Recent reports from Interpol show this trend is global. Analogue criminals are ruthlessly exploiting new industry needs created by the COVID -19 pandemic with devastating effects on the wellbeing of societies and individual citizens.

Economic downturns create opportunities for crime. While a recession entails hardship for the legitimate economy, criminals are well placed to exploit others’ desperation. Lack of accessible loans and capital puts companies under financial pressure and can leave them vulnerable to infiltration or takeovers by criminals.

In times of crisis, personal and public finances need to be protected. The proceeds of bribery, corruption, fraud, narcotics trafficking and other organized crime have all been implicated in the financing of terrorism, human rights abuses such as slavery and child labour, and environmental crimes, such as wildlife trafficking, that have the potential to trigger another pandemic.

This has serious economic and social costs in terms of the lost revenues to national exchequers that could be invested in social development, and in terms of the impact on individual lives.

Thankfully, governments are responding to this threat. In June Europol created the new European Financial and Economic Crime Centre (EFECC). EFECC will enhance Europol’s operational support to EU Member States and EU bodies and operational partners to forge alliances with public and private entities for tracing, seizing and confiscating criminal assets in the EU and beyond. The EFECC will, in particular, rely strongly on effective initiatives such as the Europol Financial Intelligence Public Private Partnership (EFIPPP).

The latest Future of Financial Intelligence Sharing (FFIS) research paper charts the global growth of public-private partnership to fight financial crime. In recent years, there has been considerable growth of such partnership; particularly in Europe.

Public-private partnerships between law enforcement, regulated financial institutions, data-providers and civil society organizations help identify criminal assets. They accelerate the speed of asset seizure, preventing criminal funds from infiltrating the legal economy and damaging our societies.

However, these partnerships are currently too small - relative to the threats - and partnership models in Europe, while advanced, do not generally benefit from dedicated public sector resourcing, nor investment in technology to support analytical processes. Most partnerships are still national in scope, while criminals can operate internationally with ease.

We know that cross-border partnerships of police forces, financial intelligence units, and other government agencies can thwart criminals. Europol’s Financial Intelligence Public Private Partnership is a world leading example of this.

National and cross-border partnerships need to be adequately resourced, data protection and AML supervisors should work together to resolve uncertainties and Europe should take steps to improve the effectiveness of cross border information-sharing; including through the use of privacy preserving analysis.

A response to the current crisis needs the public and private sectors to work together seamlessly and at a large scale to deprive criminal groups of their illicit gains.

According to a survey conducted by Refinitiv of 3,138 managers, 81% said that data privacy restricts their ability to collaborate against financial crime. The fight against financial crime should be considered a Data Space as defined by the European Data Protection Supervisor’s opinion on the European Strategy for Data and we encourage other regions to act similarly.

While the EU data strategy also points to the importance of deploying privacy preserving analysis, governments globally can be more ambitious in applying these technologies to fight financial crime. In particular, these technologies could facilitate cross-border information sharing between public agencies and among the subsidiaries of multinational private sector firms.

Europe can set an example of how to tackle cross-border financial crime if there is clear legal and supervisory support for innovation and space to explore new ways of cooperation through emerging technologies such as privacy enhancing technology to support data sharing.

Information sharing has value beyond data. It can foster better discussion and understanding of risks by all involved and result in a real pro-active and joint work on cases that protect citizens. All jurisdictions should provide a legal space for the exchange of strategic information between private and public sectors entities and there is also benefit to harmonising the exchange of tactical data so that it can be shared and acted upon at speed.

The European Commission’s Action Plan addresses a number of barriers to fighting financial crime and might serve as an example to other regions.

First, it recognises that the complexity of the financial system has opened the door to new financial crime risks. The digitization of retail banking, for example, has created new vectors for fraud. The success of Fintech services have further fragmented the information space.

Second, the EU rightfully focusses on effectiveness as it delivers on better enforcement of existing rules and strengthens its role as a world leader in the fight against financial crime. In this context, the creation of an FIU Coordination and Support Mechanism and a European supervisory authority should improve coordination and supervision while ensuring cooperation with law enforcement authorities, in particular Europol.

Importantly, the Action Plan recognizes the threat that financial crime poses to individual banks and the wider financial system. This includes, for example, the implications of how money laundering can trigger the winding-up of a bank under the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, and the uncertainty about the application of data-protection rules in sharing information between public and private sectors internationally.

To improve efficiency, organizations should increase organizational agility, deploy new technology, ensure the use of existing channels of communication, and improve partnerships with other obligated entities, and the public sector.

This entails expanding the legal and technical frameworks for fostering intelligence sharing; aligning incentives on the objective of reducing financial crime; and identifying and sharing best practice in integrating financial crime risk into risk management governance structures.

Finally, as per today’s statement from the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime, financial crime knows no borders, therefore, we support the EU’s ambition to play a stronger role in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing globally.