A way forward on mitigating illicit financial flows through a combination of regulatory reform, international cooperation and an increasingly intelligence-led approach.

Billions are spent annually on financial crime compliance and yet the current regulatory framework does not empower financial institutions to combat the evolving networks and tools available to criminals. Further, the collective global resource spent on financial crime compliance is neither efficient nor effective.

Over the last year the Institute of International Finance (IIF) and Deloitte have interviewed several key financial institutions, policy makers, regulators, and law enforcement across jurisdictions to understand the current perspectives and challenges facing the financial services industry and public sector when tackling financial crime.

In this report we comment on the existing challenges faced by stakeholders and provide detailed and achievable recommendations in seven key areas:

• Global systemic improvements for financial crime risk management
• Advancing public private partnership
• Improving cross-border and domestic information sharingImproving the use and quality of data
• Reforming suspicious activity reporting (SARs)
• Mitigating the inconsistent or incoherent implementation of financial crime compliance standards and guidance, and providing regulatory clarity
• Increasing and improving the use of technology to combat illicit finance