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Opinion
June 15, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 24
Critics of the ECB argue that the bank or another supra-national body needs to be probing money laundering suspicions across the bloc, given that some member states may lack the political will to prioritise investigations or be short of the neces- sary resources. Resistance to external interven- tion, however, could come from domestic regula- tors who might regard it as an erosion of national sovereignty.
Nevertheless, the case for a more robust re- sponse to the problem is strong. Rob Wainwright, the outgoing head of Europol, told the online news magazine Politico in April that professional money launderers are running billions of criminal profits through the banking system with a 99% success rate, despite banks spending $20bn on compli- ance. In the interview, he said Europol seizes just 1% of criminal assets in Europe annually and that Europe was losing the fight against dirty money because it has used national solutions to tackle an international problem.
The EU is alert to the need for action. Although to date there appears to have been little progress on the issue of a Europe-wide, corruption fight- ing regulator, the adoption of a more coordinated approach to tackling money laundering across the bloc is in the offing. In May member states and the European parliament agreed a number of measures to control illicit cash flows, includ- ing better information sharing between European financial intelligence units, independent agencies that probe suspicious transactions.
Wider cooperation is certainly needed to com- bat money laundering, but with the effectiveness of some regulators under the spotlight the big question is whether more intelligence will deliver tougher enforcement.
Yigal Chazan is an associate at Alaco. Alaco Dispatches is the business intelligence consultancy’s take on events and developments shaping the
CIS region.