Financial Crime Compliance Framework: Week 13 Discussion

This assignment addresses two key questions related to Australia's financial crime landscape. The first question examines the extent to which the financial crime compliance framework is well-understood relative to the underlying criminal activity. The author agrees that the criminal activity is not as well understood and provides reasons such as difficulties in directing corrupt conduct, lack of awareness, and the increasingly sophisticated behavior of organized crime groups, including their use of social media and exploitation of public sector employees. The second question focuses on the main challenges currently facing regulators and law enforcement agencies, such as AUSTRAC and the Australian Federal Police, in counteracting money laundering and combating terrorism financing. The challenges identified include the risk function of upcoming activities, political uncertainty, and governance culture. The author suggests that these challenges can be minimized through strategic planning and the implementation of performance indicators. The assignment is supported by references to academic sources.

Running head: WEEK 13 DISCUSSION 1
Week 13 Discussion
Name
Institution

REGULATORS 2
Question one
Australia’s financial crime compliance framework has been subject to comprehensive
analysis by the key regulators; however, the underlying criminal activity which the framework is
designed to prevent is not as well understood. Do you agree with the statement? Provide reason
for your answer.
I agree with the statement due to the following reasons;
 Difficulties in directing the corrupt conduct.
This was experienced in a way that the organized crime groups in Australia use social media to
employ individuals to participate in illegal drugs trade and through this they will be able to
identify the employees of the public sector and therefore be able to know the relationships that
make corruption possible (Fisman and Golden, 2017).
 Lack of awareness around the issue.
The lack of awareness of the groups that post the threats of criminal activities normally go
undetected thus giving them more opportunity to carry out their illegal conducts. The reason as
to why they go undetected is due to lack of detection and prevention measures put in place
crosswise the public sector.
 Increasingly sophisticated behavior by the organized crime groups.
The organized crime groups have created areas that the employees and criminals normally
communicate their deals. This result in creating the opportunities that assists them in emerging
subsidiary relations (Mallory, 2011). In addition, they create chances for the organized criminal

REGULATORS 3
groups to actively participate in screening the members of the public for abilities that could aid in
their criminal activities to commit the financial crimes.
 Corruption allows the groups to anticipate and avoid detection efforts.
The crime groups facilitate the employees of the public sector that participate in corruption and
therefore make deals with them thus enabling them to go undetected.
Question two
What do think are the main challenges currently facing regulators (e.g. AUSTRAC?), and
law enforcement agencies such as the Australian federal Police in counteracting and averting
money laundering and combating terrorism financing? Provide reasons for your answer. What
could be done to minimize these challenges?
Some of the main challenges facing the regulators and the law enforcement agencies
include the risk function of the upcoming activities in the future. This is whereby after several
years of boosting to achieve frequent regulatory compliance, all the focus is now put on the risk
to put in deeper value (Hess and Orthmann, 2011). This must assist to defend policy and goals
against an unpredictable economy, commotion, rivalry and globalization. The second main
challenge is political uncertainty which makes planning for the financial institutions in Australia
difficult. Implementing the changes may be time consuming and also expensive at some time.
Banks need to work on consistent information and regulation to form the foundation of proper
decision making. The third challenge is the governance culture and conduct whereby as per the
investigations and remediation in Australia is concerned, there has been a rising number of

REGULATORS 4
investigations crossways the capital and the banking markets in which a larger amount has been
exhausted on fines and legal settlements (Muncie, Talbot and Walters, 2014). The banks of
Australia have been mostly resistant from huge fines and the reply to the investigation has been
time consuming and expensive for senior management.
What could be done to minimize these challenges?
In minimizing the above challenges, some of the following solutions would be would be
applied. One is planning for the issues that may absorb much of the time to solve other issues.
This will give an opportunity to mainly focus on the real priorities. There should also be an
implementation of a procedure for tracking and measuring key performance indicators on weekly
basis.

REGULATORS 5
References
Fisman, R., and Golden, A. (2017). Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
Hess, K., and Orthmann, H. (2011). Introduction to Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.
Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Mallory, S. (2011). Understanding Organized Crime. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
Muncie, J., Talbot, D., and Walters, R. (2014). Crime: Local and Global. London, England:
Routledge.