What Is AML? Anti-Money Laundering Explained Simply
What is AML? Anti-money laundering is the set of rules and controls financial institutions use to stop criminals hiding or moving illegally obtained money — customer checks, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening and suspicious activity reporting.
Transcript
What is AML? AML stands for anti-money laundering.
It refers to the rules and controls financial institutions use to prevent criminals from hiding or moving illegally obtained money.
This includes customer checks, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening, and reporting suspicious activity. AML controls help identify unusual behavior before it becomes a bigger problem.
In simple terms, AML helps stop financial services from being used to support money laundering and other financial crimes.
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About this episode
AML stands for anti-money laundering: the rules and controls financial institutions use to prevent criminals from hiding or moving illegally obtained money through the financial system.
In practice AML is not one check but several working together — customer checks at onboarding, ongoing transaction monitoring, sanctions screening and the reporting of suspicious activity. The point of running them continuously is to surface unusual behaviour early, while it's still a pattern worth questioning rather than a problem that has already grown.
For a regulated institution these controls aren't optional extras; they're the condition of holding a licence. Demivolt runs AML controls as part of its regulated operations, alongside the KYC and KYB checks customers meet during onboarding.
Key takeaways
- AML — anti-money laundering — is the rules and controls that stop criminals hiding or moving illegally obtained money.
- It covers customer checks, transaction monitoring, sanctions screening and reporting suspicious activity.
- AML controls are designed to identify unusual behaviour before it becomes a bigger problem.
- The purpose is to keep financial services from being used to support money laundering and other financial crime.
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