On November 21, 2022, the ACAMS Italy Chapter hosted its first in-person event in Milano for the chapter’s launch, making the Italy Chapter the 62nd chapter worldwide and 15th in Europe.

Marking its first meeting at the glamourous Excelsior Hotel Gallia, the newly formed Italy Chapter brought together a team of anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-financial crime (AFC) and compliance professionals with solid and complementary backgrounds.

Presenting the board, Michele Valeriani, global head of anti-financial crime compliance at Assicurazioni Generali Group Generali, highlighted that diversity is the key driver that connects the seven board members in terms of their roles, gender and experience, considering the added value brought by the members’ different backgrounds as a main strength. The board includes Sabrina Emilia di Feo, internal audit senior manager, UniCredit Group Holding; Arianna Rovetto, group head of AML at Banco BPM; Michele Valeriani, global head of anti-financial crime compliance for Generali and member of the Group Risk and Control Committee; Alberto Armani, senior director, group head of KYC-AML at Intesa Sanpaolo; Marco Valcavi, AML officer/money laundering reporting officer at Flowe S.p.A., Mediolanum Fiduciaria S.p.A. and Prexta S.p.A.; Nicola Passariello, director and financial crime practice lead for Europe and Africa at Moody’s Analytics; and Francesco Monini, managing director and FSI Audit & Compliance Italy Practice Leader at Protiviti.

Created and run by the above-mentioned team of local AFC professionals, the ACAMS Italy Chapter is an important part of the ACAMS community. According to its mission statement, it plans to:

• Provide a platform for continuous development and networking among AFC and sanctions professionals in Italy.
• Bring relevant content to the AFC community by sharing knowledge and expertise through regular meetings and events held in both English and Italian.
• Facilitate an open dialogue across the AFC crime community between governments, regulators, law enforcement and supervised entities to develop a solid partnership for managing money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions‐related risks.
• Focus on augmenting ACAMS’ overall AFC education and training efforts.

In the context of this challenging mission and reflecting the driver of diversity, the chapter hosted its launch event in November—a seminar at the Excelsior Hotel Gallia—that drew over 120 AFC professionals from many different industries and sectors. Attendees included personnel from global banking and insurance institutions, money services businesses (MSBs) and development banks, as well as AML professionals, forensic and risk management experts, police officers and members of public authorities.

The successful evening event featured presentations from notable guests and panel discussions, as well as a network reception. Moderated by Angelo Mincuzzi, a special correspondent for Il Sole 24 Ore, the seminar included a keynote address by Blake Pritchett, deputy director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Economic Sanctions Policy and Implementation. The roundtable discussion featured Nico di Gabriele, senior team leader for European Central Bank; Marco Pacini, manager at the Bank of Italy’s Inspectorate Department;¹ Arianna Rovetto, group head of AML at Banco BPM Group; and Sabrina Galmarini, counsel at Annunziata & Conso.

The panelists shared their views on AML/counter-terrorist financing (CTF) topics, including the relationship between prevention and enforcement of financial crime, the use of new technologies by criminals to commit crimes, what AFC professionals are doing to combat financial crimes, the role of knowledge in understanding how AML operates, and building better and more insightful public-private partnerships for the sake of better cooperation and also with AML supervisors.

To build on the enthusiastic interest in the launch event, the ACAMS Italy Chapter board plans to continue professional development and education events throughout the year. These initiatives, which will be announced and organized starting in the first quarter of 2023, include a seminar on new trends in combating financial crimes focused on technology innovation and peer collaboration and a specific training initiative on sanctions.

In addition, the chapter is looking forward to focusing on other key topics, including the beneficial ownership register; the upcoming version of the Bank of Italy’s requirements regarding organization, procedures and controls that follow the European Banking Authority’s guidelines; the new risk indicators from Italy’s Financial Intelligence Unit; and the role of cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets in the AML framework.

This kind of ambitious program reflects the primary purpose of the ACAMS Italy Chapter, which is to foster the creation of a wide community of AML/CTF professionals, adding value to local ACAMS members, and providing a peer networking and educational forum for the furthering of best practices in AML and financial crime prevention and detection in Italy.

The launch of the new ACAMS Italy Chapter reflects the ambition of our country to play a key role in the AFC sector while promoting open dialogue among all AFC professionals in the public and private sectors and providing a venue for Italy’s AFC professionals to share their experiences.

ACAMS Italy Chapter Board, acamsitalychapter@yahoo.com

1. Marco Pacini’s participation was on his own behalf.