Smarter anti-money laundering (AML) controls are required to combat new methods of financial crime and avoid regulatory blind spots.
In 2025 so far, AML fines have ranged from $27k all the way up to $500m for crypto exchanges, large banks and digital payments providers.
“The consequences of poor financial crime controls are very real – they allow criminals to launder the proceeds of their crimes, and they allow fraudsters to defraud consumers”, said Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the Financial Conduct Authority.
“Banks need to take responsibility and act promptly, particularly when obvious risks are brought to their attention,” urged Chambers.
Regulators expect financial services firms to not only keep pace with evolving sophisticated financial crime but also to proactively address risks. In today’s risk landscape, legacy regulatory compliance systems or manual processes won’t cut it.
FinregE helps banks of all sizes close compliance gaps before they become costly enforcement actions.
Where it all went wrong: challenges with AML compliance at banks
With recent AML enforcement actions, here’s what went wrong:
- Breach of regulatory requirements for AML controls and customer due diligence (CDD) measures.
- Ineffective AML controls that didn’t properly capture gaps and risks in time.
- Poor risk management with Principle 3 of FCA’s Principles for businesses.
- For banks regulated in the UK, growing pains include ensuring CDD and CRA frameworks evolve with customer and product expansion along with clear governance and ownership.
- Non-compliance with AML obligations within the JMLSG guidance including requirements with identification, evaluation, monitoring of risks throughout customer lifecycles.
- Breaching Principle 3 and SYSC 6.1.1 R of the FCA’s Handbook, which requests firms to have adequate systems in place to manage risks effectively.
- Poor processes for monitoring regulatory changes that can cause impact.
- Slow implementation of new updates once changes are discovered.
- Inaccurate mapping of regulatory changes to internal polices in a timely manner and outdated rules mapping, both leading to misalignment.
- Incorrect mapping of AML/CFT requirements to onboarding processes to ensure it is fully compliant with high-risk customers.
- Poor validation systems from legacy or inaccurate regulatory technology systems leading to incorrect mapping.
- Poor assessments to inspect how regulatory changes affect existing controls.
- Inadequate documentation of steps taken to comply and unable to demonstrate compliance to regulators.
For fast-scaling digital banks and fintech’s, the message is loud and unambiguous: your regulatory controls must be as modern and scalable as your technology stack.
For larger banks: weaknesses in compliance systems create open wounds for financial crimes to happen, selecting a robust regulatory technology is now more important than ever.
“Banks are a vital line of defence in the collective fight against financial crime. They must have the systems in place to prevent the flow of ill-gotten gains into the financial system”, added Therese Chambers, FCA joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight.
What to look for when choosing the ideal RegTech solution
When shopping for regulatory intelligence technologies, prioritise the following features that forward-thinking solutions like FinregE can offer:
- RIG AI: No more manual digging. FinregE’s Regulatory Insights Generator (RIG) delivers structured summaries of regulatory updates, links them to relevant obligations, and outlines the necessary actions, cutting out human error and delay.
- Real-time risk alerts: As soon as there’s a regulatory change, alerts are automatically tagged to your internal policies and sent to the teams that need to act, whether it’s AML, onboarding, or transaction monitoring. FinregE can also integrate with client onboarding and risk-rating systems to trigger re-evaluations.
- Digital audit trails: Every action is logged from the moment guidance is received to the final decision. FinregE keeps a verifiable record of who did what, when, and why, giving firms defensible, regulator-ready evidence for audits, especially when decisions like EDD downgrades are made.
- Automated controls: Compliance actions don’t just sit in policy documents, FinregE operationalises them, embedding triggers and controls directly into systems and workflows.
- Digital rulebooks: Break complex AML policies into machine-readable obligations, mapped to owners, controls, and required evidence. For example, EDD rules can be embedded into onboarding, so nothing falls through the cracks.
- Horizon scanning: Stay ahead of every change. FinregE monitors FCA rules, JMLSG guidance, and regulatory updates across the UK, EU, and FATF, ensuring your business is always up to date.
- Regulatory obligations mapping: FinregE maps every regulatory requirement to your internal processes and documents, giving you a complete view of compliance gaps before they become issues.
Why FinregE
Every feature above? FinregE does it all.
When the FCA updates its CDD criteria, FinregE flags the change in real time, maps it to your KYC policies via Digital Rulebooks, and alerts the right teams to review and act.
For every regulated banks and fintechs, the real cost of poor financial crime controls isn’t just fines. Its trust eroded with regulators, shaken with customers, and questioned by investors.
With FinregE, your compliance controls evolve with your business. From automated rule mapping and regulatory change tracking to implementation oversight and built-in audit readiness, FinregE helps ensure confident compliance.
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