2001.04.12 银行在打击洗钱

shiyi18

Through the wringer
Banks are doing more than ever before to clamp down on money laundering. But is it enough?


Apr 12th 2001
NEW YORK

Give this article
IN MARCH, politicians in both Britain and America expressed dissatisfaction over their countries' efforts to tackle money laundering. An influential committee of British members of parliament said that “the government should take co-ordinated, coherent and properly resourced action to fight money laundering if the United Kingdom, through the City of London, is to maintain its reputation as one of the most important international financial centres.”

In America, meanwhile, a report on money laundering by Senate Democrats criticised some of America's biggest banks, including Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Bank of New York. In particular, the report criticised Citigroup, the financial-services giant that has done most to attract wealthy customers in far-flung corners of the earth, for failing to crack down adequately on money laundering by some of its Argentine clients. The bank subsequently admitted to “embarrassment” over its failure. “Too many banks in the United States, including some of the biggest, have been asleep at the switch,” claimed Carl Levin, the senator behind the report.


Revelations of what the British committee dubbed “the worst excesses of kleptocratic states” continue to undermine confidence in the determination of banks, and the ability of governments, to tackle the problem. In February, for example, Citigroup was caught up in the corruption investigation surrounding one of its wealthy customers, Joseph Estrada, the ousted president of the Philippines.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in March, 15 as-yet-unnamed banks operating in Britain were found to have significant weaknesses in their money-laundering controls. A report released by Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA), the main industry regulator, claimed that these banks had allowed some $1.3 billion to pass through accounts linked to the family of General Sani Abacha, a former military ruler of Nigeria. Even that was rather less than the £2 billion ($2.9 billion) that Slobodan Milosevic and his entourage are alleged to have slipped through banks in Greece, Cyprus and Switzerland during his time as leader of Yugoslavia.

Such high-profile cases have laid to rest any lingering doubts that money laundering—best defined as the processing through the banking system of the proceeds of crime, in order to disguise their illegal origin—is something that involves only drug dealers and unknown banks in banana republics, though such banks are certainly part of the story. Whether wittingly or not, many of the world's best-known banks have become a central element in the process by which crooks clean up their ill-gotten gains.



Despite the recent blaze of adverse publicity, there is evidence that big banks are taking money laundering more seriously than ever before. Most of them can show that they are doing a great deal more than they did (even as recently as two years ago) to prevent the fruits of crime passing through their systems. The resources devoted to the task have grown rapidly, particularly the spending on technology to sift through money-transfer data for unusual activity. Citigroup, for instance, now has a 50-strong operation in Miami that is constantly watching out for suspicious activity.

Any further tightening up on money laundering faces big obstacles. Banks understandably want to protect the privacy of their customers, and they face fierce competitive pressure not to ask too many questions. Moreover, new technology (such as anonymous electronic cash) may be making money laundering easier. Even worse, attempts to crack down may fall foul of genuine differences of opinion between regulators around the world about what, for money-laundering purposes, actually constitutes a crime.

Global business
Putting a value on money laundering is, by its very nature, a matter of ill-informed guesswork. The International Monetary Fund reckons that the amount of dirty money being cleaned through the world's financial system is huge—between $500 billion and $1.5 trillion a year, equivalent to some 1.5-5% of gross world product.

Laundering has grown hand-in-hand with globalisation, and particularly with the lifting of capital controls and the development of international payment systems. These allow money to be shifted in seconds between banks in different parts of the world that may not even be aware of each other's existence. The sums of money being transferred are huge. Bank of America, for example, sees nearly $1 trillion pass through its internal wires every day. As Alan Greenspan, the chairman of America's Federal Reserve Board, has put it, the international payment system is “crucial to the integrity and stability” of the world's financial markets. But it also provides big opportunities for crooks to hide their money by shuffling it around the globe.


Private banking is the laundering channel that has received most attention. Private banking's clients tend to be wealthy people who want their affairs handled with discretion—not least because they need help in exploiting opportunities to minimise their tax bills. Traditionally, a bank that asked too many questions would find its customers taking their money elsewhere. So a “don't ask; don't tell” culture developed, in which money laundering was able to thrive.

The revelation in 1999 that the Bank of New York had become a conduit for billions of dollars of suspect Russian money drew attention to an arguably more serious issue, the use in money laundering of “correspondent banks”—banks that have their own account at another bank. Dirty Russian money was washed through the Bank of New York's systems via its correspondent banks, including one called Inkombank.

Correspondent banking is crucial to the international payment system. But if money is paid into a foreign bank's correspondent account at, say, Citigroup, it can be harder to find out about the source of the money (and its legitimacy) than if it comes through the private-banking route. This is especially true when there is “nesting”—ie, when a foreign bank opens an account at another foreign bank which has a correspondent relationship with, say, an American bank. A nested bank may gain the advantages of correspondent status without the American bank even being aware of it.

Three-quarters of the big banks surveyed in the American Senate report had over 1,000 correspondent relationships apiece. The two biggest (which were not American) had 12,000 and 7,500 respectively. As of mid-1999, the five American banks with the most correspondent accounts held $17 billion of assets in those accounts; the top 75 banks had assets of $35 billion.

To understand the complexity that this can give rise to, consider the difficulties of America's Department of Justice during the recent “Operation Casablanca”, as described in the Senate report. Investigators found that funds allegedly laundered by illegal drugs traders had been wired to a bank account outside America. They asked the government of the bank's country for assistance, only to discover that the bank and account to which the money was transferred were actually located in another country. Officials in that country then tried to seize the assets, but found that the bank had no buildings or branches there. The assets securing the bank's obligations were once again outside the country. In the end, it turned out that the money was sitting in the bank's correspondent account at a big American bank in New York.

For all the recent focus on big banks in established financial centres, banks in so-called offshore centres are still the main targets of anti-money-laundering efforts. As of 1998 there were around 4,000 offshore banks licensed by nearly 60 offshore jurisdictions. Some 44% are in the Caribbean and Latin America, 28% in Europe, 18% in Asia, and 10% in the Middle East and Africa. They control an estimated $5 trillion in assets.

Offshore banks are more likely than onshore ones to be used by crooks. Many governments of small countries license banks largely because they are tidy revenue earners. They do not want to regulate these banks in a way that scares off customers. The recent Senate report in America raised particular concerns about those offshore banks that are not subsidiaries of banks that have well-regulated onshore operations.

The worst offenders are “shell” or “brass-plate” banks, which have no physical presence in any location. Some 75 of the Cayman Islands' 570 licensed banks are either shell banks or unaffiliated to any onshore regulated bank; so are 65 of the Bahamas' 400 banks. Both of these jurisdictions now say that they no longer issue shell bank licences. Most new ones are now created by more fringe jurisdictions, such as the Pacific island of Nauru, which has issued 400 licences, and the Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro, which is selling private bank licences over the Internet for just $9,999.

The new whitener
America passed the world's first law explicitly directed at money laundering in 1986. The Money Laundering Control Act made it a crime for a person knowingly to engage in a financial transaction involving the proceeds of a “specified unlawful activity”. Ever since, America has been leading the global fight against it.

The recent report to Congress has stimulated fresh discussion of new legislation in America, but the chances of any new laws making it on to the statute book are slim. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, recently boasted that “I killed the (Clinton) administration's anti-money-laundering legislation last year”—which would have banned dealings with banks in certain outlawed jurisdictions. He added that reform was “not on my agenda”, because America has strong laws already.


Britain, too, has been increasingly active, though its regulators have hitherto lacked the power to discipline offending banks. The FSA will get new powers later this year that will turn it into a criminal prosecuting agency, broaden the definition of money laundering to include the proceeds of all crimes (not just illegal drugs and terrorism), and allow it to write the rules defining what counts as money laundering.

The action is most intense, however, at the multilateral level—which is hardly surprising, for there is a limit to what can be done by a single country acting alone. Money laundering is intrinsically global. Cracking down on domestic banks, if it is not copied by jurisdictions elsewhere, may do little more than make those banks uncompetitive in the global marketplace.

Some of the multilateral moves have come from within the banking industry itself. Last October, 11 of the world's biggest banks, including several embarrassed by past money-laundering revelations, signed up to the so-called “Wolfsberg AML Principles”, named after a Swiss town in which they were drawn up. These are a set of basic guidelines to avoid money laundering in private banking. The Basle committee of national bank regulators, which sets common international standards for bank supervision, recently said that it would also draw up agreed procedures for banks to use when deciding whether to accept a customer, and to help them in monitoring the activity taking place in their accounts.

The greatest progress, however, has been made by the OECD's Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which was established in 1989. Last July, it published a blacklist of 15 jurisdictions, ranging from Russia and Israel to the Marshall Islands, that are “non-co-operative” with its anti-money-laundering efforts. These efforts are based on 40 recommendations, which are in the process of being updated to take into account the growing involvement in money laundering of lawyers, securities firms, accountants and real-estate agents.

The British parliamentary report in March echoed the FATF when it expressed concern at “the under-reporting of suspicious transactions by certain professional groups, in particular lawyers and accountants”, who are “often prime targets for money launderers”. Of 14,129 suspicious transactions reported in 1998, a mere 0.7% came from accountants. Of the country's 12,500 solicitors, only 57 submitted a report.

The FATF is now mulling over how to punish the countries on its list, whether to add new countries to it, and, more happily, whether to remove from it those that have done what the FATF asked of them. Its decisions will be made in June. The group's actions have, however, already had a striking impact. Since the blacklist appeared last July, the number of filings (by banks operating in America) of suspicious activity reports (SARs)—ie, a significant money transfer whose legality the bank is unsure about—relating to the 15 jurisdictions have doubled. At the same time, many of the blacklisted jurisdictions have fallen over themselves to do whatever might get them delisted. Only four countries have made no serious attempt at co-operation: Lebanon, the Philippines, Nauru and, by far the most significant, Russia. Although an anti-money-laundering bill has been tabled in the Russian parliament, it is not clear that it amounts to much.

The Cayman Islands, which proclaims itself a serious financial centre increasingly used for institutional rather than private banking, is lobbying furiously to be removed from the list. It has introduced strong anti-money-laundering laws, and is now trying to convince a somewhat sceptical FATF that it is serious about implementing them. David Ballantyne, the Caymans' tough-talking Scottish attorney-general, recently submitted a detailed plan to the FATF of how this would be done. His emphasis is on prosecuting offenders: it is now possible to go to jail for up to 14 years for money-laundering offences on the Cayman Islands.

Know your customer
There remain many obstacles to cracking down still further on money laundering. The first may be President George Bush. His administration seems more sceptical than its predecessor about the value of participating in multilateral initiatives. It remains to be seen whether this change of tone will lead to a real difference in approach, however. Second, there is the sheer difficulty of detecting money laundering. An official report in 1995 observed that looking for evidence of money laundering is not merely like looking for a needle in a haystack, but rather for “a needle in a needlestack”.

Increasingly, regulators think that merely reacting to their requests is not enough. They want banks to play a proactive role in rooting out money laundering—which, say some critics, could “turn banks into cops”. At the heart of this is an innocuous-sounding regulatory requirement to “know your customer”. This means finding out who it is that wants an account before they open it, where the money has come from, and what happens to it afterwards.

One obvious problem is that customers may not wish to be known in such a close fashion by their bank. In America, there is typically a political outcry whenever know-your-customer legislation is proposed, on the ground that it is a breach of privacy. Public opposition led to the withdrawal of such legislation in 1999. However, much of the thrust of the proposed laws was achieved anyway—through guidelines issued by the regulators last year.


Outside America, for instance in Switzerland, the need for privacy in banking is often seen as even more essential—though it is a sign of changing attitudes that last year Austria decided to scrap its anonymous bank passbooks so as to avoid suspension from the FATF. Where the line between fighting crime and protecting customers' privacy should be drawn is likely to be much debated over the next few years.

The cost of searching for money launderers also imposes a limit on what can be done. Some staff are putting in so many extra hours at banks affected by recent scandals, trying to get to know their customers better, that they are getting to know their families less. Even trickier, the concerns raised about correspondent banking have created a new, and more elusive goal: to know your customers' customers.

At the same time, technological developments may be making it harder for banks to know their customers, even if they try. Regulators are increasingly worried about the potential of anonymous electronic cash. So far, there is not much evidence that crooks are exploiting it. But, according to one New York bank regulator, there is growing concern about a Mondex smart card in use in Europe which allows money to be transferred without leaving an electronic trail.

Looming largest of all is the lack of a consensus, even among the world's richest, most powerful countries about what, for the purposes of fighting money laundering, should count as a crime. It may now be relatively easy to get such countries as Switzerland or even the Cayman Islands to co-operate in tracking down revenues from the illegal drugs trade or terrorism. But they may prove less helpful if the target is revenue from, say, Internet gambling—a big bugbear of the Senate report. And with some justification. Who are, say, the Americans to decide that an online bet took place in America, where it is illegal, just because the gambler used a computer in, say, Salt Lake City, when the company and the server taking the bet may be in a country where the gamble is legal? Should those countries be obliged to go along with America's claim that any revenue generated by Internet gambling is a fruit of crime?

This question is even more acute when it comes to tax evasion or avoiding government-imposed controls on capital movements, the two main reasons people have traditionally used offshore centres. Should taxes evaded be treated by banks as the equivalent of profits from crime? Some critics reckon that the hidden agenda behind the attack on money laundering is for big countries to make it much harder for their citizens to evade taxes by cutting off those offshore centres that offer low taxes from the international payment system.

As the banks increasingly become an arm of law enforcement, nobody should forget that much of the money flowing out of badly run countries may be genuine flight capital, not stolen cash. History counsels against too rigid a commitment to enforcing other countries' definitions of crime. Those Jews able to get their money out of Germany during the 1930s broke the capital controls that were then in place. It would be sad if future victims of oppression were prevented from getting at their money by a wall of bankers-turned-sleuths.



经历磨难
银行在打击洗钱方面所做的工作比以往任何时候都多。但这是否足够呢？


2001年4月12日
NEW YORK


3月，英国和美国的政治家都对他们国家解决洗钱问题的努力表示不满。一个由英国议员组成的有影响力的委员会说，"如果英国要通过伦敦市保持其作为最重要的国际金融中心之一的声誉，政府应该采取协调的、一致的和有适当资源的行动来打击洗钱活动。"

与此同时，在美国，参议院民主党人的一份关于洗钱的报告批评了美国的一些最大的银行，包括花旗集团、摩根大通、美国银行和纽约银行。该报告特别批评了花旗集团，这个在地球遥远的角落吸引富人客户方面做得最多的金融服务巨头，未能充分打击其一些阿根廷客户的洗钱行为。该银行随后承认对其失败感到 "尴尬"。"报告背后的参议员卡尔-莱文（Carl Levin）称："美国有太多的银行，包括一些最大的银行，都在开关处睡着了。


被英国委员会称为 "贪污腐败国家最严重的过度行为 "的揭露，继续削弱了人们对银行的决心和政府解决这一问题的能力的信心。例如，今年2月，花旗集团被卷入了围绕其富裕客户之一、被推翻的菲律宾总统约瑟夫-埃斯特拉达的腐败调查。

在大西洋的另一边，3月，在英国经营的15家尚未命名的银行被发现在其洗钱控制方面存在重大缺陷。英国主要行业监管机构金融服务管理局（FSA）发布的一份报告称，这些银行允许约13亿美元通过与尼日利亚前军事统治者萨尼-阿巴查将军的家族有关的账户。即使这个数字也比斯洛博丹-米洛舍维奇及其随行人员在担任南斯拉夫领导人期间通过希腊、塞浦路斯和瑞士的银行溜走的20亿英镑（29亿美元）要少。

这些备受瞩目的案件打消了人们对洗钱--最好的定义是通过银行系统处理犯罪所得，以掩盖其非法来源--只涉及毒贩和香蕉共和国的未知银行的疑虑，尽管这些银行肯定是故事的一部分。无论有意还是无意，世界上许多最知名的银行已经成为骗子清理其不义之财过程中的一个核心因素。



尽管最近有大量的负面报道，但有证据表明，大银行比以往任何时候都更认真地对待洗钱问题。它们中的大多数可以证明，它们在防止犯罪成果通过其系统方面所做的工作比以前（甚至在两年前）要多得多。用于该任务的资源迅速增加，特别是用于筛选汇款数据以发现异常活动的技术支出。例如，花旗集团现在在迈阿密有一个50人的行动小组，不断注意可疑的活动。

对洗钱的任何进一步收紧都面临着巨大的障碍。可以理解的是，银行希望保护其客户的隐私，而且他们面临着激烈的竞争压力，不能问太多问题。此外，新技术（如匿名电子现金）可能使洗钱更容易。更糟糕的是，由于世界各地的监管机构对什么是洗钱的目的，实际上构成犯罪存在真正的意见分歧，打击的尝试可能会陷入困境。

全球业务
就其本质而言，对洗钱进行估值是一个不知所云的猜测问题。国际货币基金组织估计，通过世界金融系统清洗的脏钱数额巨大--每年在5000亿至1.5万亿美元之间，相当于世界总产值的1.5-5％。

洗钱活动与全球化同步发展，特别是随着资本管制的取消和国际支付系统的发展。这些系统允许资金在几秒钟内在世界不同地区的银行之间转移，而这些银行甚至可能不知道对方的存在。被转移的资金数额是巨大的。例如，美国银行每天有近1万亿美元的资金通过其内部电线。正如美国联邦储备委员会主席艾伦-格林斯潘所说，国际支付系统对世界金融市场的 "完整性和稳定性至关重要"。但它也为骗子提供了大好机会，让他们通过在全球范围内洗钱来隐藏自己的钱。


私人银行业务是最受关注的洗钱渠道。私人银行业务的客户往往是富人，他们希望自己的事务得到谨慎处理--尤其是因为他们需要帮助，以利用各种机会将其税款降到最低。传统上，一家银行如果问得太多，就会发现其客户把钱带到其他地方。因此，形成了一种 "不问不说 "的文化，在这种文化中，洗钱活动得以猖獗。

1999年，纽约银行被揭露成为数十亿美元可疑俄罗斯资金的渠道，这引起了人们对一个可能更严重的问题的关注，即利用 "代理银行"--在另一家银行有自己的账户的银行进行洗钱活动。肮脏的俄罗斯资金通过纽约银行的代理银行，包括一家名为Inkombank的银行，通过纽约银行的系统被清洗。

代理银行对国际支付系统至关重要。但是，如果钱被支付到一家外国银行在花旗集团的代理账户，就会比通过私人银行途径更难发现钱的来源（以及其合法性）。当出现 "嵌套 "时尤其如此--即一家外国银行在另一家与美国银行等有代理关系的外国银行开立账户。嵌套银行可能在美国银行甚至不知道的情况下获得代理行地位的优势。

在美国参议院的报告中，四分之三的受访大银行都有超过1000家的代理关系。最大的两家银行（不是美国银行）分别有12,000和7,500家。截至1999年年中，拥有最多代理账户的五家美国银行在这些账户中拥有170亿美元的资产；前75家银行的资产为350亿美元。

为了理解这可能引起的复杂性，请考虑美国司法部在最近的 "卡萨布兰卡行动 "中的困难，如参议院报告中所述。调查人员发现，据称由非法毒品交易商清洗的资金已被汇入美国境外的一个银行账户。他们向银行所在国的政府寻求帮助，但却发现转入资金的银行和账户实际上位于另一个国家。该国官员随后试图扣押这些资产，但发现该银行在那里没有建筑物或分支机构。为银行债务提供担保的资产再次出现在该国境外。最后，事实证明，这些钱存在该银行在纽约的一家美国大银行的代理账户中。

尽管最近对成熟的金融中心的大银行进行了关注，但所谓离岸中心的银行仍然是反洗钱工作的主要目标。截至1998年，大约有4000家境外银行获得了近60个境外管辖区的许可。大约44%在加勒比和拉丁美洲，28%在欧洲，18%在亚洲，10%在中东和非洲。他们控制着大约5万亿美元的资产。

离岸银行比在岸银行更有可能被骗子利用。许多小国的政府为银行发放许可证，主要是因为它们能赚取丰厚的收入。他们不希望以吓跑客户的方式来监管这些银行。美国参议院最近的报告对那些不是在岸业务监管良好的银行的子公司的离岸银行提出了特别关注。

最严重的违法者是 "空壳 "或 "铜板 "银行，它们在任何地方都没有实际存在。在开曼群岛的570家持牌银行中，约有75家是空壳银行或与任何在岸监管银行无关联；在巴哈马的400家银行中，也有65家。这两个司法管辖区现在都说他们不再发放空壳银行牌照。现在大多数新的银行是由更多的边缘司法管辖区创建的，如太平洋岛屿瑙鲁，它已经发放了400个许可证，还有南斯拉夫的黑山共和国，它在互联网上出售私人银行许可证，价格仅为9999美元。

新的美白剂
美国在1986年通过了世界上第一部明确针对洗钱的法律。洗钱控制法》规定，一个人在知情的情况下参与涉及 "特定非法活动 "收益的金融交易是一种犯罪。从那时起，美国一直在领导全球的反洗钱斗争。

最近提交给国会的报告激发了美国对新立法的新讨论，但任何新法律被写入法规的机会都很渺茫。参议院银行委员会主席菲尔-格拉姆（Phil Gramm）最近吹嘘说，"我去年杀死了（克林顿）政府的反洗钱立法"--该立法将禁止与某些非法管辖区的银行进行交易。他补充说，改革 "不在我的议程上"，因为美国已经有强大的法律。


英国也越来越积极，尽管其监管机构迄今为止还缺乏对违规银行进行惩戒的权力。金融服务管理局将在今年晚些时候获得新的权力，这将使其成为一个刑事起诉机构，扩大洗钱的定义，以包括所有犯罪的收益（不仅仅是非法毒品和恐怖主义），并允许其编写规则，界定什么是洗钱。

然而，在多边层面的行动最为激烈--这并不奇怪，因为单个国家单独行动所能做到的是有限的。洗钱在本质上是全球性的。打击国内银行，如果不被其他地区的司法机构效仿，可能只会使这些银行在全球市场上失去竞争力。

一些多边行动来自于银行业本身。去年10月，世界上最大的11家银行，包括一些因过去洗钱事件而感到尴尬的银行，签署了所谓的 "沃尔夫斯堡反洗钱原则"，该原则以起草该原则的瑞士小镇命名。这些原则是一套避免私人银行洗钱的基本准则。各国银行监管机构的巴塞尔委员会为银行监管制定了共同的国际标准，该委员会最近表示，它还将制定商定的程序，供银行在决定是否接受客户时使用，并帮助他们监测客户账户中发生的活动。

然而，经合组织金融行动特别工作组（FATF）取得的进展最大，该工作组成立于1989年。去年7月，它公布了一份15个司法管辖区的黑名单，从俄罗斯和以色列到马绍尔群岛，这些司法管辖区对其反洗钱工作是 "不合作的"。这些努力是基于40项建议，这些建议正在更新，以考虑到律师、证券公司、会计师和房地产经纪人越来越多地参与洗钱活动。

英国议会3月份的报告与FATF一致，对 "某些专业团体，特别是律师和会计师对可疑交易的报告不足 "表示关切，他们 "往往是洗钱者的主要目标"。在1998年报告的14,129项可疑交易中，只有0.7%来自会计师。在该国的12,500名律师中，只有57人提交了报告。

FATF现在正在考虑如何惩罚其名单上的国家，是否在名单上增加新的国家，以及更令人高兴的是，是否将那些已经完成FATF要求的国家从名单中删除。其决定将在6月做出。然而，该组织的行动已经产生了显著的影响。自去年7月黑名单出现以来，（由在美国经营的银行）提交的可疑活动报告（SARs）--即银行不确定其合法性的重大资金转移--与这15个司法管辖区有关的报告数量增加了一倍。与此同时，许多被列入黑名单的司法管辖区都在努力做任何可能使其除名的事情。只有四个国家没有认真尝试合作。黎巴嫩、菲律宾、瑙鲁和迄今为止最重要的国家--俄罗斯。尽管一项反洗钱法案已被提交给俄罗斯议会，但不清楚它是否有什么作用。

开曼群岛宣称自己是一个严肃的金融中心，越来越多地被用于机构而不是私人银行业务，它正在大力游说，希望从名单上删除。它已经出台了强有力的反洗钱法律，现在正试图说服有点怀疑的FATF，使其认真执行这些法律。开曼群岛的苏格兰总检察长大卫-巴兰坦（David Ballantyne）最近向FATF提交了一份关于如何实施的详细计划。他的重点是起诉犯罪者：现在在开曼群岛，犯了洗钱罪的人有可能被监禁长达14年。

了解你的客户
要进一步打击洗钱活动，仍有许多障碍。第一个可能是乔治-布什总统。他的政府似乎比其前任对参与多边倡议的价值更加持怀疑态度。然而，这种语气的变化是否会导致方法上的真正差异，还有待观察。第二，检测洗钱的难度非常大。1995年的一份官方报告指出，寻找洗钱的证据不仅仅是大海捞针，而是要 "大海捞针"。

越来越多的监管机构认为，仅仅对他们的要求作出反应是不够的。他们希望银行在根除洗钱方面发挥积极主动的作用--一些批评者说，这可能 "把银行变成警察"。这方面的核心是一个听起来无害的监管要求，即 "了解你的客户"。这意味着在开立账户之前要弄清楚谁要开立账户，钱从哪里来，以及之后会发生什么。

一个明显的问题是，客户可能不希望被他们的银行以如此密切的方式了解。在美国，每当提出 "了解客户 "的立法时，通常都会引起政治上的强烈抗议，理由是这是对隐私的侵犯。公众的反对导致了1999年此类立法的撤销。然而，拟议中的法律的大部分主旨还是通过监管机构去年发布的指导方针实现了。


在美国以外的地方，例如瑞士，人们通常认为银行业务中的隐私需求甚至更为重要--尽管这是态度变化的一个迹象，去年奥地利决定废除其匿名银行存折，以避免被金融行动特别工作组中止。打击犯罪和保护客户隐私之间的界限应该如何划分，在未来几年内可能会有很多争论。

搜索洗钱者的成本也对能做的事情造成了限制。在受近期丑闻影响的银行，一些员工为了更好地了解客户而付出了大量的额外时间，以至于他们对自己的家庭了解得更少。更为棘手的是，人们对代理银行业务的关注产生了一个新的、更难以捉摸的目标：了解你的客户的客户。

同时，技术的发展可能会使银行更难了解他们的客户，即使他们尝试。监管机构对匿名电子现金的潜力越来越担心。到目前为止，还没有多少证据表明骗子正在利用它。但是，据一位纽约银行监管者称，人们对欧洲使用的Mondex智能卡越来越关注，该卡允许在不留下电子痕迹的情况下进行资金转移。

最令人担忧的是，即使在世界最富有、最强大的国家之间，也没有达成共识，为了打击洗钱，什么应该算作犯罪。现在，让瑞士甚至开曼群岛等国家合作追踪来自非法毒品贸易或恐怖主义的收入，可能相对容易。但是，如果目标是来自互联网赌博的收入，它们可能就不那么有用了--这是参议院报告的一个大问题。而且有一些理由。比方说，美国人有什么资格仅仅因为赌徒使用的是盐湖城的电脑，而接受赌注的公司和服务器可能在一个赌博合法的国家，就决定网上赌注发生在美国，而这是违法的？这些国家是否应该被迫同意美国的说法，即互联网赌博产生的任何收入都是犯罪的成果？

当涉及到逃税或避免政府对资本流动的控制时，这个问题就更加尖锐，这是人们传统上使用离岸中心的两个主要原因。银行是否应该将逃税视为等同于犯罪的利润？一些批评者认为，攻击洗钱背后的隐藏议程是大国通过切断那些提供低税的离岸中心与国际支付系统的联系，使其公民更难逃税。

随着银行日益成为执法部门的一个分支，没有人应该忘记，从经营不善的国家流出的许多钱可能是真正的逃亡资本，而不是偷来的现金。历史告诉我们，不要过于僵硬地致力于执行其他国家的犯罪定义。在20世纪30年代，那些能够把钱带出德国的犹太人打破了当时实行的资本管制。如果未来的压迫受害者被一堵由银行家变成的骗子的墙所阻止，无法拿到他们的钱，那将是很可悲的。