Economic Secretary to the Treasury ():
The UK’s status as a global financial centre, our openness to
trade and investment, and the ease of doing business here are all
vital for our prosperity. These remarkable strengths also make us
vulnerable to the risk of illicit financial flows from money
laundering and terrorist financing. The Government is committed
to tackling these risks which undermine our economy and society
and enable those who wish us harm to fund their activities.
Today, the Treasury and the Home Office are jointly publishing
the UK’s third National Risk Assessment of money laundering and
terrorist financing (NRA). This assessment updates the findings
of the second NRA to take account of new information and
developments that have emerged since its publication in 2017. The
report has also been laid in Parliament.
The key findings of the 2020 NRA are as follows:
- The traditional high-risk areas of money laundering remain,
including financial services, money service businesses (MSBs),
and cash. However, new methods continue to emerge within these,
as criminals adapt to increased restrictions and exploit
vulnerabilities in different sectors and emerging technology.
- The cryptoasset ecosystem has developed and expanded
considerably in the last three years, leading to increased risk
of money laundering.
- The ability to conceal the beneficial owners make the art
market attractive for money laundering, and art market
participants have been assessed as posing a high-risk of money
laundering.
- Professional services remain attractive to criminals as a
means to support laundering the proceeds of crime, through the
creation and operation of corporate structures, the investment
and transfer funds to disguise their origin, and through lending
layers of legitimacy to their operations.
- The UK’s terrorist financing threat continues to involve low
levels of funds being raised by UK individuals for the purpose of
lifestyle spending and low sophistication attacks.
Since 2017, the UK’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist
financing regime has undergone review by the Financial Action
Task Force. The UK achieved one of the best ratings of any
country assessed so far in this round of evaluations,
outperforming other states who are at the forefront of tackling
money laundering and terrorism financing. However, no country can
afford to be complacent, and there remain vulnerabilities that we
must work to address.
Since the 2017 NRA, the Government has continued to take action
to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. We have built
on the success of the economic crime public-private partnership
through the inception of the Economic Crime Strategic Board and
the publication of the Economic Crime Plan in 2019. We have also
created the National Economic Crime Centre, and the Office for
Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision, both of
which have helped to further strengthen and coordinate our
response to money laundering. The Government is also bringing
forward plans to further strengthen corporate transparency
through reforms to Companies House and the register of companies.
The UK will look to remain a leader in the global fight against
money laundering and terrorist financing, and we will continue to
revise and reform our response to economic crime as new risks and
methodologies emerge. The publication of the third NRA today is
an important step in this fight, as it provides a critical
component of continued partnership and prioritisation between
government, law enforcement, supervisors and the private sector.
