Financial aspects of the anti-money laundering methodology

The methodology of formation of the modern anti-money laundering (AML) system is based on the principles of self-organization, globality and mutual control. The principle of self-organization is implemented at two levels - the level of self-organization of countries (the supranational level) and the level of self-organization of financial institutions (national level). The mechanisms through which countries are involved in the global AML system is based on the principle of globality. In practice, this principle is realized in voluntary and forced basis. The European Union and the United States, concerned about the rising crime in their countries, voluntarily joined their efforts in this direction. On their initiative, FATF was formed, an international committee, which has developed 40 anti-money laundry recommendations and nine recommendations about using financial monitoring in order to stop the financing of terrorists. The countries involvement in the AML process is based on conducting mutual evaluations of countries for compliance with national laws and current practices in the field of FATF's anti-money laundering recommendations, as well as to make a "black list" of countries that do not pay enough attention to the fight against money laundering. FATF includes countries in the "black list" to impose economic sanctions on them. Severity of the sanctions force the state to implement the FATF's recommendations. The most important contemporary problem is the closing of financial information in offshore countries. For these countries, income from financial services is most part of their national income. Involvement in AML procedures, as well as economic measures for evasion, will have a negative impact on such countries, most of them having no other areas of development. Given this fact, these countries are given an opportunity to find ways to involve them in the AML international system (regional approach). A regional approach aims to integrate a number of states, which rea neighbours and have common features in the economy, culture, national mentality, to FATF-style organizations. By 2011, all countries were grouped into eight regional FATF-style groups. The modern role of these associations is mixed. Especially those that include off-shore countries, actively used by transnational criminal organizations to launder their income or to finance terrorists. The fragmented implementation of FATF recommendations not aimed at tangible results in enhancing their participation in the exchange of information on the money movement would have been subjected to economic sanctions, if we were talking about one or several countries. But a group of countries has the ability to use a regional office in the FATF for delaying the expanding AML processes on their territories. A three-level structure of the international AML slows unification of approaches to implementing the anti-money laundering recommendations, respectively, the costs of financial institutions and national budgets do not still bring the expected results. The global financial crisis has shown that inefficient burden on financial institutions, sooner or later become serious problems. It should go from the stage of an experimental model to a fully operational mechanism of AML.

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