The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, has published a new report calling on governments and the private sector to deepen collaboration as criminals exploit rapid digitalisation and increasingly complex cross-border payment flows.
The study, titled Information Sharing to Combat Illicit Finance: Global Overview of Public and Private Sector Partnerships and Data Protection Arrangements, explores how public-private partnerships (PPPs) and related information-sharing frameworks can help countries and firms identify, investigate and shut down money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing (ML/TF/PF) with far greater speed and reach.
According to the research, at least 84 PPPs now operate worldwide. Of the jurisdictions surveyed, 52 confirmed running at least one domestic partnership, while 18 operate several. The FATF concludes that these arrangements become durable and effective weapons against financial crime when they rest on a solid legal foundation, well-defined governance and technological innovation.
The watchdog outlines a range of partnership models in use internationally and stresses that cooperation must widen beyond banks to include virtual asset service providers, non-financial sectors and unconventional participants, a shift it deems necessary as fraud surges globally.
More than three quarters of reporting jurisdictions deploy PPPs to exchange strategic intelligence, covering typologies, red flags and risk trends, while between 55% and 66% use them for operational sharing, spanning case intelligence, suspicious transaction indicators and Know Your Customer information. The report also points to innovations reinforcing these exchanges, from encrypted platforms and secure channels to the participation of telecom operators and digital platforms.
Case studies illustrate the operational payoff. A transnational anti-scam alliance under Singapore’s Project FRONTIER+, spanning 13 jurisdictions, generated over 2,100 arrests, froze more than 36,000 bank accounts and seized roughly S$28.2m. Separately, South Africa’s tactical operation group saw banks scrutinise suspicious client activity, leading to the collapse of a pyramid scheme and the freezing of 60 accounts worth over $450,000.
The FATF adds that available tools and technologies allow authorities to balance operational efficiency with data protection, privacy and human rights obligations. It urges countries to set shared objectives and clear legal expectations, supported by senior-level engagement and joint guidance from AML/CFT and privacy regulators.
FATF president Giles Thomson said, “Public-private partnerships are helping to achieve results that would not otherwise be possible with information on financial crime in fragmented siloes across public and private sectors. I encourage countries to use public-private partnerships to build the trust, collaboration, and high-speed channels for information sharing needed to counter increasingly sophisticated criminal methods. This is essential to effectively disrupt and prevent illicit finance, especially the fast growing threat from fraud. I encourage governments around the world to draw on the good practices in this report and to think innovatively on how we can take the fight to the criminals.”
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