Leveraging the payments architecture in the fight against economic crime

Money laundering, fraud, and other economic crimes are significant challenges affecting societies worldwide. Unfortunately, the innovative and flexible ways in which criminals move money are often at odds with the siloed methods used by financial institutions, regulated entities, and the public sector to detect wrongdoing. One proposed solution to this problem is the creation of information-sharing utilities, such as COSMIC in Singapore and TMNL in the Netherlands. However, before a new utility can be brought online, data protection concerns, agreement of common data standards, and the design and implementation of the utility all need to be addressed. As a result, significant time and investment are required before a greenfield utility can start to deliver value.

This is where aggregated data within national payments infrastructures could come into play. This new whitepaper explores the potential benefits of using existing points of data aggregation, such as the UK's Bankers Automated Clearing System (Bacs) and Faster Payments Service (FPS), to support law enforcement and regulators in combating economic crime. The paper identifies three use cases and possible sources of funding to bear any costs falling on the public sector. The paper also emphasizes the importance of cohering various information-sharing initiatives under an overarching strategy and looks to the New Payments Architecture as a “once in a generation” opportunity to leverage payments data to combat economic crime.