Efforts to combat financial crime across Europe are undergoing their most significant transformation in decades. Regulatory consolidation, rising cost pressures, rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), and increasingly sophisticated criminal tactics are forcing organizations to overhaul operations, shifting toward proactive, data-driven risk management at a regional scale. Anti-financial crime (AFC) executives must deploy complex, cross-border programs that deliver clear return on investment while maintaining credibility with ever more analytical supervisors.
The Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) and the new European AML Rulebook (AMLR) — both part of a comprehensive reform package approved by the European Union in 2024 — are becoming major catalysts for change. AMLA launched in July 2025 and will select 40 high-risk financial institutions for direct supervision by 2027, becoming fully operational by 2028.
The AMLR establishes a consistent set of rules across Europe, a centralized supervisory framework, and comparable methodologies to harmonize risk management. Financial institutions should use this structural shift as a springboard to harmonize internal policies, streamline transaction monitoring, and unify supervisory functions. Financial institutions should also align risk assessments and model governance with AMLR standards. The challenge is moving from a check-the-box mentality to truly operationalizing and scaling execution.
This is a unique opportunity to reduce duplication, improve efficiency, and create predictable supervisory interactions.
Shifting from cost control to value-driven anti-financial crime performance
Cost control has become a strategic priority as AFC costs rise from growing data volumes, false positives, and regulatory demands. Yet, institutions also need to bolster their defenses with new detection technologies and enhanced investigative processes. Leading institutions shift from viewing AFC budgets as cost centers to managing them as investments in measurable value.
Utilizing AI to automate low-risk investigations while focusing experts on high-value cases is one way in which institutions can drive efficiency. Embedding productivity metrics such as false positive reduction and cost per alert is essential to quantify return on investment. End-to-end process redesign and strengthening data infrastructures must drive cost discipline without sacrificing controls.
From AI experiments to agentic AI-enabled continuous risk management
Advances in generative AI and machine learning now enable industrial-scale improvements beyond incremental optimizations, delivering faster, more consistent outcomes, improved triage, and enhanced quality control. These gains hinge on solid foundations: clean, governed data; transparent, explainable models; and strong governance with clear accountability and human-in-the-loop controls.
Executives must prioritize deploying AI in well-understood, value-rich domains while simultaneously strengthening AFC data architecture and governance frameworks to ensure scalable, sustainable adoption. The next evolution is agentic AI where AI autonomously orchestrates end-to-end risk management processes within clear guardrails, enabling real-time, continuous monitoring, dynamic risk scoring, and faster identification of emerging threats. Human expertise will still be critical, but investigators will transition to strategic advisors focused on complex decision-making, ensuring AI augments, rather than replaces, critical judgement.
Public‑private partnerships are driving collective intelligence in AFC
No bank can fight modern financial crime alone. Criminal networks span borders and institutions, exploiting data silos and fragmented defenses. The growing maturity public-private partnerships (PPP) and financial crime utilities offer an opportunity for greater collaboration.
Pilot programs have grown into scalable, governed partnerships and industry utilities that standardize data sharing and analytics, underpinned by privacy-enhancing technologies like federated learning. AMLA’s regulatory clarity enables broader, compliant participation across Europe, making PPPs a strategic capability rather than merely reputational compliance.
For executives, PPP and utility participation enhance detection accuracy, reduce false positives, cus costs, and strengthen supervisory credibility. However, it also requires strong governance, robust legal frameworks, and data protection vigilance.
Senior anti-financial crime executives must proactively align policy, data, technology, governance, and collaboration strategies today to build a resilient, scalable AFC framework that supports sustainable growth.
