From the Director of Editorial Content Archives

From the Director of Editorial Content, March - May 2023

Public Interest Versus Privacy Rights Play Out in CTA

March 10, 2023March 14, 2023 /Leave a comment

In January 2021, the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA) was greeted with near jubilation by the anti-financial crime (AFC) community. Since then, regulations implementing the AMLA, specifically the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) portion, have gotten a mixed reception from AFC professionals....

December 2022 – February 2023, From the Director of Editorial Content

Saving the Crypto World From Itself

December 12, 2022 /Leave a comment

The cost to global markets of multiple recent failures of digital asset service providers, particularly Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, a collapse playing out as we close this issue of ACAMS Today, remains unknown. But because FTX’s bankruptcy is likely to result in billions of dollars in...

From the Director of Editorial Content, September - November 2022

Time to Come Together on Crypto Regulation

September 22, 2022 /Leave a comment

Despite the failures of several cryptocurrency exchanges last spring, including several platforms dedicated to creating or trading stablecoin, resistance to reasonable regulatory oversight remains strong. The push against regulation continues even as institutions and wealthy individuals have begun buying crypto and traditional financial institutions have...

ACAMS Today Europe 2022, From the Director of Editorial Content

Russia’s Ukraine Invasion Spurs on a United Europe

June 6, 2022 /Leave a comment

In 31 March, ACAMS was privileged to host the “Anti-Financial Crime Symposium—Baltics” in Vilnius. About 250 Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian anti-financial crime (AFC) professionals from the private sector and government were delighted by the opportunity to meet face-to-face for the first time in more than...

From the Director of Editorial Content, March - May 2022

Looking Back, Looking Forward

March 17, 2022 /Leave a comment

There is a lot to celebrate as we recognize the 20th-anniversary of ACAMS and the launch of ACAMS Today . I believe it is fair to say that the award-winning magazine you’re reading now, together with the ACAMS members who have exchanged their work, insight and...

A message from the Director of Editorial Content

December 2021 - February 2022, From the Director of Editorial Content

It Is All About the Digital World

December 8, 2021 /Leave a comment

Increasingly, our purchases are digital, whether via card or other types of electronic transactions utilizing fiat or cryptocurrencies. Of course, drug dealers and other criminals are still bundling bills into suitcases or shrink-wrapping them into blocks to move illicit funds into the financial system, but...

ACAMS Connection, From the Director of Editorial Content, September 2021 - November 2021

Twenty Years Later: What We Lost, What We Gained

September 3, 2021February 2, 2023 /Leave a comment

Most of us can vividly recall where we were 20 years ago on September 11, 2001. At 8:46 a.m., the North Tower of the World Trade Center was struck by what many initially assumed was a small off-course plane. But when the South Tower was...

From the Director of Editorial Content, June - August 2021

Digital Assets’ ‘Brave New World’

June 25, 2021 /Leave a comment

Looking back, 2020 was the year of COVID-19, cybercrime and cryptocurrency. The three, of course, are connected. Emboldened by the pandemic, cybercriminals were busy committing fraud, often utilizing cryptocurrencies, not least to receive payment in the many high-profile ransomware attacks that made headlines in 2020...

ACAMS Today Europe, From the Director of Editorial Content, May - June 2021

Egmont Admonition: A Reminder That AML Can Be Misused

May 20, 2021May 26, 2021 /Leave a comment

I write often and hopefully about the rising acceptance throughout the world of anti-financial crime standards. But it turns out global anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) standards are a little like ‘The Force’ in the Star Wars universe: there is a light (good) side...

From the Director of Editorial Content, March - May 2021

Death to Tick the Box, Long Live Catch the Bad Guys

March 30, 2021 /Leave a comment

Over the almost 15 years that I have been with ACAMS, the phrases “tick the box” and “catch the bad guys” have been constants. The first is spoken disparagingly referring to an approach to compliance that anti-financial crime (AFC) professionals say has been forced upon...

ACAMS Today

The Magazine for Career-minded Professionals in the Anti-Money Laundering Field

Russia’s Hope of Ice Hockey Glory Buried Under Sanctions

Trade Finance Risk and Controls

Is It “Groundhog Day” for Digital Assets?

The Rise of Real Estate Money Laundering

Choppy Waters: Negotiating the Complexities of Sanctions Due Diligence in an Uncertain World

The BSA Tractor

From the Director of Editorial Content