The money laundering and terrorist financing risks of new and disruptive technologies: a futures-oriented scoping review

Abstract

New and disruptive technologies, including cryptocurrencies and new payment methods, are revolutionising the way people engage with finance. Although they provide significant benefits to consumers, they are also inadvertently creating new money laundering and terrorist financing risks. This paper examines the risks that are, or are predicted to be, prevalent in three technology sectors—distributed ledger technologies (including cryptocurrencies), new payment methods and financial technologies (FinTech), through a systematic scoping review process. Specifically, the paper identifies enablers of both crimes, the precise criminal methods they might facilitate, at-risk stakeholders (of exploitation and/or complicity) and risk characteristics. The study involves systematic scoping reviews of the academic and futures literatures as well as a consultation exercise with experts to assess the likely veracity of the findings. In addition to identifying an array of specific risks, we identify six underlying trends that facilitate them. We discuss these, their policy implications, future directions for research and their benefit for conducting risk assessments to assess forthcoming technological developments.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41284-022-00356-z.