The Prudential Control and Resolution Authority (ACPR) published a report dedicated to the Fight against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (LCB-FT) on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. This report focuses on the use of automated devices to monitor transactions by financial institutions.

The report published by the ACPR follows a thematic review conducted by the Authority, it indicates that it requested 36 controlled groups and entities (by sending a questionnaire) covering all business lines and types of establishments covered. These are banks, insurance organizations, fintechs, etc. In summary of the report on page 3, it is stated that “The objective of this review is to take stock of the functioning and performance of transaction monitoring tools [...]. The document does not pronounce on the compliance with the regulations of the practices described.”

According to the report, the use of IT tools dedicated to the automated monitoring of transactions is generalized to all actors requested, and is essentially based on market solutions. In addition to automated tools, all institutions also report relying on additional human monitoring. Quite significant differences in practices are also mentioned in the report. These include the fact that some institutions (which we imagine to be rather small in size) systematically treat their alerts into reinforced examinations, that conversion rates from alerts to reinforced examinations vary between 1% and... 70%, and that the financial resources devoted to monitoring transactions vary between a few hundred thousand euros and several million