Odd Lots · Monday, September 7, 2026
Oliver Bullough stated that the global cost of compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) legislation is approximately $200 billion per year. He argued that despite this immense expenditure and the highly intrusive nature of regulations like Know Your Customer (KYC), these efforts have been largely ineffective in stopping money launderers, who remain a step ahead of regulators.
“The estimates from LexisNexis is that global compliance with AML legislation, it costs something like $ 200 billion a year, which is a lot of money.”
“But it's not working. The system that we have is incredibly laborious, very bureaucratic. It generates, as you say, millions upon millions of suspicious activity reports every year, but it is signally failing to stop the money launderers who are always at least one step ahead.”