As highlighted above, together is best when it comes to Anti-money laundering (AML) and Anti - Fraud. AML traces the origin of funds to ensure illegally earned money has not being disguised as legitimate, simply put any attempts to make dirty money look clean. In contrast, the aim of Fraud-prevention is to prevent or reduce monetary losses caused by criminal acts of deception, such as identity theft and forgery.

Despite the evident overlap of the AML and Fraud functions within businesses/ organisations, these two teams are often traditionally separated. It is worthy to note that AML and Fraud teams need to effectively work together and share best practices on the risk/ threats they face as on many occasions the threat one faces has the potential to affect the other. A good example could be in the case of a credit card fraud where the fraud prevention team suspects the culprit/ those involved might also be involved in laundering money, this suspicions can be escalated to the AML team for review, verification of any red flags and application of appropriate mitigation controls.

In conclusion for effective collaboration, intelligence sharing is a must between AML and Fraud functions and there must also be strong financial crime controls in place. This list is not exhaustive, however the following as listed above would reduce the effects of criminal activity and promote integrity and stability within the financial space.

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