The Pressure Points: Legal, Compliance, Risk and Data in Financial Services
Week 4: Financial Crime
Continuing The Pressure Points, my mini-series exploring what is actually happening across legal, compliance, risk and data in financial services. Each week brings together two posts: a short market view, followed by a deeper dive into the themes coming through from firms, regulators and advisory work. The aim is to keep it useful, commercially relevant, and focused on what feels real.
Market View: Financial Crime Still Gives a Clear Read on the Market
One area that still feels like a very reliable pressure point is financial crime.
Not because it is new. Because it never really goes away. Fraud, AML, sanctions, monitoring, due diligence, escalation, cross-border complexity.
It is one of the clearest areas where regulatory scrutiny, operational pressure and commercial urgency all meet. And it is not just a banking issue.
The direction of travel in the UK is toward more centralised and more consistent AML supervision, including across professional services. That tells you something about where the focus is heading and how seriously AML capability is being treated.
That is why financial crime hiring conversations are often quite revealing. You can normally hear the underlying issue pretty quickly.
Is the business growing? Is scrutiny increasing? Has backlog built up? Has the operating model fallen behind the risk? Has the tech stack improved less quickly than the threat landscape?
Usually it is not one thing.
That is why the better hires in this space are often people who combine judgement, pace and stakeholder handling, not just technical knowledge.
Financial crime still feels like one of the areas where the market gives you the clearest read on what is really happening under the surface. Do others see it that way too?
Deeper Dive: AML as an Operating Model and Leadership Issue
Following on from my post earlier this week on financial crime, one thing that feels increasingly clear is this: AML is becoming more of an operating model and leadership issue, not just a compliance workstream.
You can see it in the level of scrutiny. You can see it in the enforcement focus. And you can now see it in the direction of travel on supervision as well.
The UK Government has said the FCA will become the single AML supervisor for legal services, accountancy services and trust and company service providers carrying on in-scope activity.
That does not mean the FCA becomes the general regulator of law firms. But it does say something important about where things are heading.
More consistency. More centralisation. More supervisory focus. More expectation that firms can evidence robust AML frameworks in practice.
That has a few implications.
1. Financial crime capability is not becoming less important.
2. The pressure is spreading beyond traditional financial institutions.
3. The market will keep rewarding people who combine technical depth with judgement, delivery and credible stakeholder handling.
Because the real issue is rarely whether AML matters. It is whether the business has the people, governance and operating discipline to keep up with the scrutiny around it. That is where a lot of the more interesting hiring conversations seem to start.
Are others seeing AML become more central to leadership and operating model discussions, not just compliance ones?
This is part of The Pressure Points, a weekly series exploring what’s really happening across legal, compliance, risk and data in financial services.
Missed the previous weeks? Catch up here:
If you’d like to follow the series and stay close to these market shifts, you can connect with Jordan Forbes on LinkedIn.
