A new inquiry into economic crime in the UK has been launched by Parliament’s Treasury Committee.
The inquiry will focus on two main strands:
- Anti-money laundering and the sanctions regime. The Committee will examine the scale of money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions in the UK, the current regulatory and legislative landscape, and how individuals, firms and the wider economy have been impacted by these regimes and the implementation of them.
- Consumers and economic crime. The Committee will scrutinise the scale and nature of economic crime faced by consumers, the effectiveness of financial institutions in combatting economic crime, and the security of consumer’s data.
"Given the threats that face the UK, the effectiveness of the regimes that we use to protect our financial system from misuse have never been more important,” explained Rt Hon. Nicky Morgan MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee. “It has been claimed that the UK, particularly the London property market, is becoming a destination of choice to launder the proceeds of overseas crime and corruption – so-called ‘dirty money’. One estimate suggests that up to £4.4 billion worth ofUK properties may have been bought with suspicious wealth.”
“As part of our inquiry, the Treasury Committee will examine the UK’s role in international efforts to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing and implement sanctions,” she said. “We will also look at economic crime at the consumer level, including fraud and scams. As online banking and payments have become more prevalent, there are now more opportunities for fraudulent activity.”
“The ONS has estimated that there were 3.2 million fraud incidents for the year ending September 2017,” she added. “As millions of customers are exposed to the risk of economic crime, we’ll scrutinise the response of the Treasury, its associated bodies and the regulators, and explore the role that consumer education can play."
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Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.