Illicit Finance

More from the Series

POLICY PAPERS
Illicit Financial Flows, Trade Misinvoicing, and Multinational Tax Avoidance: The Same or Different?
Maya Forstater
March 26, 2018
Illicit financial flows (IFFs) connected with corruption, crime, and tax evasion are an issue of increasing concern. However, there is not yet a clear consensus on how to define illicit financial flows, and even less on how to measure them.
Blog Post
How Illicit Finance Controls Can Make It Harder for Nonprofits to Serve the World’s Neediest —and What to Do about It
Jim Woodsome
and
March 05, 2018
A growing number of humanitarian aid organizations operating in conflict zones are  having trouble finding banks willing to work with them. We attended an international stakeholder dialogue on ensuring financial services for nonprofit organizations, and offer our preliminary thou...
Blog Post
Can Robots Save Banks? RegTech’s Potential to Solve De-Risking
and
Jim Woodsome
February 21, 2018
Policies put in place to counter financial crimes have unfortunately had a chilling effect on banks’ willingness to do business in markets perceived to be risky—due in part to the high price of compliance. Even as changes are being made to address this problem, financial institutions are...
REPORTS
Fixing AML: Can New Technology Help Address the De-risking Dilemma?
Jim Woodsome
and
February 19, 2018
Even while policy solutions to address de-risking are being implemented, new technologies have emerged to address de-risking by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of AML/CFT compliance by financial institutions.
Blog Post
Is the Idea of Counting Dollars of Illicit Financial Flows Undermining Action Where It Counts?
Maya Forstater
December 19, 2017
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a target to “significantly reduce illicit financial flows (IFFs).” While there is no global consensus about what this means, working definitions point to funds that are “illegally earned, transferred, and/or utilized.&rdquo...
Blog Post
Stop Spreading the Myth: Zambia Is Not Losing $3 Billion to Tax Avoidance
Maya Forstater
October 23, 2017
If transparency in debates around matters of natural resource wealth, then so too does the way that figures get translated into public debates.  Earlier this month the Lusaka Times published a claim that multinational mining companies were “robbing Zambia of an estimated $3...
Blog Post
Illicit Financial Flows and Trade Misinvoicing: Time to Reassess
Maya Forstater
September 01, 2017
You might remember the UNCTAD report on trade misinvoicing published last year which alleged that the majority of gold exports leave South Africa unreported. If not, you will more than likely have heard the billion dollar estimates of illicit financial flows as a source of resources for&nb...