Napier AI secures majority investment, all vIBAN transactions will be traceable across the EU, FATF warns on lax international crypto standards
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From Paul O'Donoghue at AMLi
Napier AI, a leading AI-powered financial crime compliance solutions business, has secured a majority growth investment from Marlin Equity Partners.
The transaction from Marlin, a global investment firm with over $9 billion in capital commitments, will further enable Napier AI to grow through research and development and support its go-to-market expansion globally.?
Since being founded in London in 2015, Napier AI’s Continuum platform is used by over 100 institutions worldwide, including HSBC, State Street, Starling Bank, ClearBank and WTW. It uses data science principles to equip financially regulated firms with compliance-first AI, to stay ahead of sophisticated financial crime threats.??
The company said the investment ‘highlights the demand for AI solutions in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing’. It marks a growth phase for the company, focused on advancing AI technologies, enhancing financial crime detection, and prioritising customer-centric regional tech hubs.?
“In an era of ever-evolving financial crime threats, having a modern solution leveraging AI and automation is paramount to maintaining regulatory compliance and protecting the financial services industry from bad actors,” said Greg Watson , CEO of Napier AI.?
Mike Wilkinson, a managing director at Marlin, said: “We are excited to work alongside the Napier AI management team and are thrilled to support the company’s vision of helping more enterprises effectively and efficiently put a halt to money laundering activities.
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TRANSACTIONS
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VIRTUAL IBANs are meant to be revolutionizing cross-border transactions.
However, amid mounting money laundering concerns, it seems timely that a top European official has issued a reminder funds moved using vIBANs will soon be traceable across EU member states by police.
Derville Rowland , Ireland’s deputy Central Bank governor, said the change was introduced as part of the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation adopted by the EU last year, aiming to standardize AML rules across the bloc.
“Details of Virtual IBANs which are linked to other payment accounts will have to be recorded in member states’ bank account registers,” she said.?
“This will allow law enforcement to trace any funds being moved by such vIBANs.”
vIBANs differ from standard IBANs in that a single bank account can be linked to multiple vIBANs.?
This can be great for businesses, which can use several vIBANs for several currencies that all funnel payments to one master account.
But this also creates a risk of money laundering, with the likes of German regulator BaFin recently warning that the use of vIBANs can complicate efforts to identify payment senders, recipients, and their locations.
The EU’s harmonization effort looks to be a step towards making vIBAN transactions much easier to track and trace.
Technology front and centre at upcoming ‘European Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2025’ May 7
The agenda for EAFCS2025 comprises Five Plenary Sessions, each including a Keynote Speaker and Panel Discussions. The draft agenda covers:
领英推荐
CRYPTO
WARNING: International failure to implement tighter standards for crypto companies has resulted in major loopholes being exploited by criminals, FATF's 2023-24 report released says.
Raja Kumar - the president until June - said countries must follow the FATF guidance on virtual assets and virtual asset service providers (VASPs) “to prevent their misuse for illicit finance”.
One of Kumar’s last acts during his tenure was for FATF to publish an update reviewing how jurisdictions have complied with FATF requirements around VASPs, which were published in 2019.
This recommendation states that countries should introduce several requirements to oversee VASPs. These include ensuring that they are licenced and that they are regulated by a “competent national authority”.
The FATF update published in July 2024 looked at the 130 country reviews which FATF has carried out since 2019, when the VASP recommendation was published.
It found that 97 of the jurisdictions (75%) were either rated as ‘partially compliant’, or ‘not compliant’ with the VASP recommendation, unchanged compared to 2023.
STANDARDS: New guidelines from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) aim to standardize how EU countries deal with crypto companies.?
The supervisory briefing from the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor provides ‘concrete guidance’ for ‘National Competent Authorities’ (NCAs), the regulators in each EU member state.
It mostly lays out how they should deal with applications from Crypto Asset Service Providers (CASPs) which want to establish new business operations.?
ESMA said NCAs are expected to apply the principles in the supervisory briefing “during authorisation procedures, as well as ensure continued adherence for CASPs once they have been authorised”.
CYBERCRIME
ONLINE MARKETPLACES: German authorities, supported by Europol and law enforcement from eight countries, have dismantled Cracked.io and Nulled.to, allegedly the world’s largest cybercrime forums.
These platforms, hosting over 10 million users, served as hubs for cybercrime discussions and marketplaces for illegal goods, including stolen data, malware, and hacking tools.
In a statement, Europol said the operation, conducted from January 28 to 30, resulted in two arrests, seven property searches, 17 servers and over 50 electronic devices seized and €300,000 in cash and cryptocurrencies confiscated.
Europol, which coordinated the operation, said the suspects earned an estimated €1 million in criminal profits.
Cracked.io and Nulled.to were examples of the growing trend of cybercrime-as-a-service, where criminals offer tools, tutorials, and AI-powered scripts to automate attacks.
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Stephen?and the team at AMlintelligence.
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3 周Seems to be a great investment synergy Well done!