The financial services sector is at the heart of the fight against serious and organised crime. The National Crime Agency’s (NCA) National Strategic Assessment (NSA) has once again highlighted the pivotal role financial institutions play in tackling increasingly complex threats such as fraud, illicit finance, and cybercrime, all of which exploit advancements in technology to perpetrate harm on an unparalleled scale.
But what does this mean for financial services? This blog dissects the latest findings, explores their implications, and addresses the steps compliance officers and institutions must take to mitigate risk while strengthening their role in combating financial crime.
A Growing Threat Landscape
One of the key takeaways from the NSA assessment is that serious and organised crime (SOC) is evolving rapidly. Fuelled by the ubiquity of digital technology, criminals are exploiting online spaces and new tools at an alarming pace. From their use of cryptocurrencies and electronic money institutions (EMIs) to networks of mule accounts, the methods have become more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Key Figures from the NSA:
- The UK alone sees an estimated £12 billion in criminal cash generated annually, with a realistic possibility of £100 billion being laundered through its financial system or corporate structures each year.
- Money mules are a critical enabler, helping Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) obscure illegal fund origins through layers of transactions in both witting and unwitting banking accounts.
- Criminal use of technology ranks as one of the top three enablers of SOC, with offences spanning borders and virtual spaces.
For banks and financial institutions, these growing threats make clear how critical their role is — not only in detecting SOC activity but in disrupting the sophisticated mechanisms behind it.
Financial Crime Themes
The NSA identifies financial loss as a prominent harm caused by SOC, with cybercrime, fraud, and illicit finance sitting firmly among the top nine threats. Here’s a closer look at the themes most relevant to financial services:
Fraud
Fraud remains a widespread crime that affects individuals and businesses alike. While the NSA notes that fraud levels have slightly declined from 2022, it is still the most reported crime in England and Wales (accounting for an estimated 37% of all crime). The lack of direct oversight over transactions originating from overseas complicates detection efforts for institutions.
However, technological advancements have equipped some organisations to better address low-harm, high-volume fraud. The onus now falls on institutions to deploy robust digital investigation strategies to keep pace with adaptive and innovative criminal networks.
Illicit Finance
Illicit finance, described in the NSA as a key driver of SOC, presents perhaps the most significant challenge to financial institutions. Not only does it fund further criminal activity such as drug trafficking, but it also funnels profits into legitimate sectors, hampering economic integrity.
Concerning Trends:
- Increased use of cryptocurrencies for laundering both digital and traditional crime proceeds.
- Exploitation of UK corporate structures due to vulnerabilities in oversight, e.g., misuse of dormant companies or multiple registrations at single residential addresses.
- Laundering by corrupt elites and kleptocrats using UK institutions to evade international sanctions.
The Criminal Use of Technology
Technology has long been used by organised criminals, but it has reached unparalleled complexity. Criminals now have tools to obscure identities, automate illicit transactions, and exploit virtual and immersive environments.
For compliance teams, the challenge lies in preparing for threats that continue to emerge and evolve. The question financial institutions must ask is, “What is your digital investigation strategy when risk occurs, and can you bring together digital insights to tackle advanced criminality?”
The Role of Financial Services in Combating SOC
The NCA makes it clear that financial institutions act as both a safeguard and potential vulnerability within the SOC ecosystem. They are potentially implicated downstream, as recipients of illicit funds, and upstream, as facilitators of criminal operations if vulnerabilities are exploited.
Key Responsibilities:
Monitoring and Detection
Harnessing automated, intelligence-driven tools is essential for financial institutions to detect and disrupt unlawful activity. By cleansing and analysing large volumes of data—such as transactional records—machine learning algorithms can uncover anomalies and generate actionable intelligence to flag fraud, money laundering, and other high-risk behaviours.
These technologies significantly enhance monitoring and reporting capabilities, especially when dealing with high-risk clients.
The Chorus Intelligence Suite (CIS) stands out in this space, capable of analysing over 200 million risk and intelligence events daily—delivering a 97% time saving in the data cleansing and analysis process. What’s more, its advanced analytical modelling techniques leaves no stone unturned when conducting financial investigations. Capabilities include:
- Follow the money – Upload bank statements and search for patterns in the movement of funds across multiple accounts. Spot layering techniques and match transfers across accounts.
- Enrich data – Automatically add information to transactions to build a profile and identify a financial lifestyle. Identify where cash flows appear too large and where salaries do not match day to day expenditures.
- Report intelligently – Create custom reports to display analysis. Chart the activity of an account over time and use a fully interactive pivot table to display results and offer as intelligence and evidence.
Collaboration with Enforcement Agencies
Financial institutions must act not only as compliance bodies but as active partners in combating SOC. By securely sharing actionable intelligence with law enforcement agencies, banks can help disrupt criminal networks.
Developing data pools between financial institutions, regulators, and law enforcement can significantly enhance the detection of complex financial crime patterns. By integrating diverse datasets, these centralised platforms enable a more holistic view of suspicious activities, allowing for quicker, more coordinated responses.
The CIS is proven to uncover up to 25% more evidence through secure data sharing and case collaboration.
Building Resilience Against Emerging Threats
To stay ahead of evolving threats, financial institutions must invest in both their people and their tools. This means training staff effectively and equipping compliance teams with cutting-edge investigative technology.
A key area of focus is open-source intelligence (OSINT), which helps reduce the risk of overlooking critical online evidence. The CIS streamlines this process—cutting research time by over 75% through its advanced federated search and enrichment capabilities. With seamless integration of third-party data sources, including business and beneficial ownership registries, personal identifiable information (PII) databases, risk indicators, and hundreds of social media platforms, CIS ensures no stone is left unturned.
Countering SOC with Technology and Collaboration
The Chorus Intelligence Suite (CIS) exemplifies how FS organisations can partner with innovative technology providers to stay ahead of financial crime. The system’s advanced capabilities ultimately allow institutions to:
- Cleanse, analyse, and visualise vast datasets for better decision-making.
- Identify complex crime networks by aggregating internal and external data.
- Conduct fully audited case management and collaborative investigations internally and externally, across teams and partner agencies.
- Use automated, intelligence-driven tools to automate arduous manual and repetitive tasks, resulting in the number of investigations able to be progressed by up to 50%
By deploying sophisticated tools and layering them with inter-agency collaboration, institutions can transition from a reactive to a proactive stance — enabling them to detect, deter, and disrupt threats before they escalate.
Preparing for the Future of Financial Crime Prevention
The NSA brings a stark but critical reality into focus. If the financial services industry does not adapt to the increasingly digital and globalised framework of organised crime, it risks falling behind faster than it can compensate for. Banks, regulators, and compliance teams must re-evaluate their strategies to address rapidly evolving methodologies of criminals.
Questions Every Institution Should Be Asking Today:
- Do we have the tools necessary to combat technologically sophisticated financial crimes, such as cryptocurrency laundering or dark web activity?
- Can our data systems detect mule account activity and identify vulnerable users before they are recruited?
- How are we leveraging automated, intelligence-driven tools to mitigate money laundering risks at the source?
The NCA’s assessment is both a wake-up call and a roadmap. Understanding the dynamics driving SOC and investing in forward-thinking compliance solutions could mean the difference between mitigating financial crime and becoming its next victim.
Stay Ahead with Chorus
To transform your compliance capabilities and investigate criminal activity, explore how the Chorus Intelligence Suite can help your institution take control.
Contact us today to schedule a demo. Together, we’ll ensure you remain a step ahead of organised crime.
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