Financial Crime: Keep Calm and Export!

Are financial institutions doing enough to stop international organized crime networks from infiltrating their customers’ open account trade payment flows to launder the proceeds of crime?

Three years on since the shock referendum result, the UK has officially left the European Union. The UK has begun the process of negotiating a future trade agreement with the EU, as well as seeking to replace the 40 further international trade agreements the UK benefits from by being a member of the EU and which allow it to trade with 70 countries around the world (with which it currently conducts 60% of its total trade). Whatever your position was on Brexit, it is now time to try to make it work.

According to the UK’s most recent trade numbers¹, only 10% of UK businesses export. Seven of our top ten UK export markets for goods and services are members of the EU, with the others being America, China and Switzerland. As the UK ‘goes it alone’, the Government will encourage businesses to increase export activity with countries in Africa and the Middle East, and with key markets in Asia, including China and India. We have already seen this, with the UK’s first ever UK-Africa Investment Summit², taking place in London on 20th January 2020, and with Presidents, Prime Ministers and senior members of governments from a number of African countries, hosting trade events in the UK in recent weeks, including Rwanda and Ghana. The opportunities presented by markets like Africa are too big to ignore.