The FCA Thematic Review was published last week to assess whether Asset Management & Platform Firms are taking adequate steps to mitigate money laundering and bribery and corruption risks.

We put the spotlight on the good and poor practice examples outlined in the FCA report. Our expert, Mark Dunn, has summarised and highlighted the review and industry challenges.

The review found some good examples of risk management – for instance, most firms had relatively well-developed arrangements for the ownership of money laundering and bribery and corruption risks – but common weaknesses were found across the 22 firms in our sample.

Conclusions from the Thematic Review

The FCA review on Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Bribery and Corruption Systems & controls: Asset Management and Platform Firms uncovers a number of concerns and overall the FCA is unhappy that “Given our strong regulatory focus and previous publications on AML and ABC we expected firms to have taken more action to ensure their controls reduced the risk of money laundering and bribery and corruption.”

The FCA highlights the various approaches taken to AML compliance by firms across the review sample and particularly “where the firms were part of major financial groups, which should have been aware of our expectations. In some cases, the firms we visited were from groups that had been subject to previous regulatory attention but we still found significant weaknesses.”

The FCA expects improvement and for firms to take note of the reviews findings and other guidance within the FCA Financial Crime: a Guide for Firms.

The full FCA report and press release can be accessed via the following link:
http://www.fca.org.uk/news/thematic-reviews/tr13-9-anti-money-laundering-and-anti-bribery