Global Glimpses

The Council of Europe’s Moneyval Committee is calling on the Vatican to step up its anti-money laundering enforcement actions. Although the Vatican has finally revamped its regulations to address terrorist financing and money laundering, there’s still a lot of work needed to detect and prevent suspicious transactions, the regulator said. 

In an effort to stem the tide of money-laundering activites in Britain's 14 Overseas Territories (including the British Virgin Islands), the U.K. parliament accepted a cross-party amendment to the Sanctions and AML Bill that will force the territories to set up public registers of beneficial ownership. 

In this week’s podcast, Leon Blonk, regional compliance officer at the Bank of China, discussed the current state of anti-money laundering compliance in the Netherlands and what companies should consider when conducting business in this part of Europe. According to Transparency International, the Netherlands ranked eighth in its latest Corruption Perceptions Index, which means that the country still has some work to do in dealing with corruption. Listen here.

Strict new anti-money laundering regulations will make compliance matters much more complicated for U.K. solicitors whose business makes them a target for money laundering operations.

HSBC’s new anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions policies are due to be in place by the end of the year, but what form of compliance or enforcement will they take?