Strategic advisor and former Energy and Energy Industries and Finance Minister Conrad Enill has warned that financial crimes are outpacing institutional controls.
He made the statement as he addressed the opening of the Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Conference on Thursday.
“Criminals are adaptive, data-driven, and globally connected, which means the speed of financial crime is now outpacing traditional compliance methods.”
He stressed that this view originated from one of the world’s oldest international financial institutions.
“We are now operating in a different environment that consists of digitally enabled financial crime, cross-border financial systems, FinTech and virtual assets, and high-speed transactions. The Bank for International Settlements has warned that financial crime is evolving faster than institutional controls.”
Mr. Enill noted that culture contributes significantly to rising levels of non-compliance with financial regulations.
“Compliance failures do not occur in policy documents. They occur in moments. A transaction is flagged, the system works, the alert is generated, but the decision is not escalated. That is not a system failure. That is not a system failure. That is a cultural failure.”
He offered some strategic advice to help attendees address the rising levels of financial crime.
“It is a strategic lens to understand the conditions under which compliance frameworks succeed or fail. Leadership, risk awareness, behaviour, accountability, resources, measurement. What this model does is synthesise those principles into a structure that leaders can use to guide institutions strategically.”
The theme of the AML Conference was ‘Compliance Culture is Essential to Protect your Entity from Savvy High-Tech Criminal Elements.’