What 'financial crime' covers

Financial crime is a broad umbrella term covering fraud, bribery and corruption, money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion. This course focuses mainly on money laundering, since it's the area most professional services firms, financial institutions, and many other businesses have direct legal obligations around, but the same underlying principle runs through all of them: criminals need the financial system to move, hide, or use the proceeds of their activity, and every regulated business is a potential gatekeeper.

In the UK, the core legal framework includes the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) and the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, which set out both the criminal offences and the practical obligations, like due diligence and reporting, that regulated firms must follow.