AMLA Executive Board Member Hennie Verbeek-Kusters spoke today at the International Anti-Financial Crime Summit in London, highlighting the role of prevention in strengthening the effectiveness of the AML/CFT framework.
She stressed the importance of bringing together supervision, FIU cooperation and risk analysis to strengthen the EU's capacity to anticipate threats, understand how criminal networks exploit weaknesses in the financial system and support more effective interventions.
Verbeek-Kusters highlighted prevention as a key measure of AML/CFT effectiveness. Strong legislation, effective controls and greater transparency can reduce opportunities for abuse and make the financial system more difficult and costly for criminals to exploit. While this preventive impact is not always immediately visible, she described it as a form of “quiet success” that is central to an effective AML/CFT framework.
She pointed to progress in areas including measures on cash payments, customer identification, crypto-assets and beneficial ownership as examples of how the financial system has become progressively more resistant to misuse.
Looking ahead, Verbeek-Kusters compared the development of Europe’s AML/CFT framework to a marathon, underlining the importance of consistency, endurance and maintaining a clear focus on long-term impact.
She underlined that the ultimate objective is an AML/CFT framework that combines effective prevention, strong financial intelligence and enforcement, while making criminal abuse harder, rarer and less profitable.
Read the full speech here.
