Research & Insights
Original analysis, industry research, expert commentary and in-depth perspectives from AML Observatory. This section examines regulatory trends, market developments, compliance challenges and the changing nature of financial crime across jurisdictions and industries.
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Sep- 2026 -4 September
FATF Finds Underground Banking and Hawala Key Channels for Professional Money Laundering
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) published a new report on 3 September 2026 examining how underground banking, hawala and other similar service providers are…
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3 September
Dutch Banks Set Out Responsible AI Framework for AML Transaction Monitoring
The Dutch Banking Association (NVB) has published a 39-page industry white paper setting out how banks can use machine learning in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist…
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Aug- 2026 -28 August
Bank of Russia Adds 2,600 Crypto Wallets to Illegal-Finance Intelligence System
The Bank of Russia has published its review of illegal activity in the financial market for the first half of 2026, including new data on…
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26 August
Nigeria FIU Report Shows 42,082 STRs and 28.1 Million PEP Transaction Reports in 2025
Nigeria’s Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) received 42,082 Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs), 10,513 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and 41,716,214 Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) during 2025, according…
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20 August
FlowShield Research Combines Fund-Flow Tracking and LLMs for Crypto AML Detection
A new research preprint proposes a cryptocurrency anti-money laundering framework that combines transaction semantics, fund-flow reconstruction, graph learning and large language models to detect laundering…
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19 August
RUSI Maps North Korea’s Crypto-to-Fiat Laundering Vulnerabilities and Compliance Responses
A new research paper from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) examines how North Korea converts stolen virtual assets into fiat currency, highlighting the point…
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19 August
Fintel Alliance Finds Coordinated Mortgage Fraud Across Major Australian Banks
AUSTRAC’s Fintel Alliance has identified coordinated mortgage fraud and systemic weaknesses across Australia’s lending sector after analysing data from 10 major banks. According to AUSTRAC,…
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19 August
Static KYC Is Giving Way to Perpetual Customer Risk Monitoring
Periodic KYC reviews are increasingly being challenged by a more dynamic model of customer risk management: perpetual KYC, or pKYC. The shift reflects a basic…
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18 August
Legacy Systems and Fragmented Data Remain Major Barriers to RegTech Adoption
Legacy technology, fragmented data and internal governance are continuing to slow the adoption of third-party RegTech, even as financial institutions increase their use of compliance…
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17 August
Fragmented Ownership Is Undermining Financial Crime Risk Assessments
Financial crime risk assessments can fail even when the methodology itself appears sound if accountability is fragmented across too many functions, according to new analysis…
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