Asia Tops World for Money Laundering Risk

A global survey of senior anti-money laundering (AML) compliance officers identified Asia as the region currently experiencing the greatest increase in money laundering risk. But financial services firms all over the world are reacting to the threat of money laundering and investing in AML solutions. According to the survey, conducted by New York-based risk and compliance solutions provider Fortent, 65 percent of respondents expect their institutions to commit more resources to monitoring and detection over the next two years.

"China and Southeast Asia is an area of tremendous economic expansion and increasing trade to, from and through the countries in that region," said Jim Richards, executive vice president, Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) officer, Wells Fargo, in a release about the survey's findings. "With the positive benefits of economic expansion and trade come the negative aspects of increased fraud and money laundering. We need to be inventive, determined and proactive if we're going to identify and investigate suspicious activity tied to finance in these areas."

Senior executives from 21 global, national and regional financial institutions participated in the survey. Organizations polled included banks based in the United States as well as overseas, with asset sizes ranging from $25 billion to more than $1 trillion. Survey respondents represented the top levels of their institutions' compliance programs.