The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Stephen
Barclay):The UK is one of the world’s largest and most
open economies. The Government are committed to tackling the risk
of illicit financial flows from money laundering and terrorist
financing, and to protecting the UK as an attractive country for
legitimate business and a leading global financial centre. As the
threats from illicit finance and terrorist financing continue to
evolve, so must our understanding of the risks and our response.
Today, the Government are publishing the UK’s second national
risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing. This
2017 assessment, jointly published by the Treasury and the Home
Office, shows how our understanding of and response to money
laundering and terrorist financing have developed since the first
assessment in 2015.
The key findings of the 2017 assessment are as follows:
High end money laundering and cash based money laundering remain
the greatest areas of money laundering risk to the UK. New
typologies continue to emerge, including money laundering through
capital markets and increased exploitation of technology.
The distinctions between money laundering typologies are becoming
increasingly blurred. Criminal funds are progressing from lower
level laundering and are being accumulating into larger sums to
be sent overseas using more sophisticated methods.
Professional services are a crucial gateway for criminals looking
to disguise the origin of their funds.
Cash, alongside cash intensive sectors, remains the favoured
method for terrorists to move funds through and out of the UK.
A wide-ranging set of reforms by Government and law enforcement
over recent years is still in its early days, but is starting to
take effect.
The UK has been at the forefront of recent global efforts to shut
down money laundering and terrorist financing. The 2016 London
anti-corruption summit led to over 600 specific commitments made
by more than 40 countries and six major international
organisations.
In 2015, the UK published its first ever national risk assessment
of money laundering and terrorist financing. This set out
candidly the areas where action was needed. In 2016, the
Government published an action plan and committed to the most
significant reforms to our anti-money laundering and
counter-terrorist financing regime in over a decade.
Many of the actions in this plan have now been delivered or are
underway. The Criminal Finances Act 2017 will provide tough new
powers such as unexplained wealth orders. The Money Laundering
Regulations 2017 bring the latest international regulatory
standards into UK law. The publicly accessible register of people
with significant control (PSC) was introduced in 2016, and
records the beneficial owner of a company, thus improving
corporate transparency. Progress continues with reforms to the
suspicious activity reporting and supervisory regimes.
This 2017 assessment provides a critical component of continued
partnership and prioritisation between Government, law
enforcement, supervisors and the private sector.
