Combating financial crime remains high on FSA's agenda

LONDON – Philip Robinson, director of the financial crime and intelligence division at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), in his keynote speech at the annual Money Laundering and Financial Crime conference in July, stressed the importance of firms actually reading the guidance the FSA issues on AML and financial crime, rather than their being read only by criminals intent on financial crime.

Robinson looked back over three years of the FSA's campaign against financial crime, and highlighted how much larger the challenge has become for firms to keep a step ahead of the fraudsters. Although the FSA has made a concerted effort to work with the larger financial services firms to combat money laundering, smaller firms have been somewhat neglected (as highlighted by the FATF assessment, see separate story), and as such Robinson announced the FSA's new approach to assessing and mitigating