The National Crime Agency (NCA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have today published nine economic crime priorities for the UK’s regulated sector.
The priorities include combatting cash-based money-laundering, the exploitation of money mules, and fraud associated with overseas jurisdictions. They are available here.
The NCA estimates that over £100 billion is laundered through or within the UK each year. This primarily consists of the proceeds of drugs, fraud and trafficking, as well as criminal funds linked to small boat crossings.
The publication meets a commitment in the UK’s second Economic Crime Plan and marks a significant step forward in aligning public and private sector efforts to tackle financial crime and terrorist financing threats.
The priorities are aligned with the National Risk Assessment (NRA) and have been set by the NCA and its partners in the public sector. They are endorsed by the Financial Conduct Authority, Home Office and HM Treasury, all of whom have played a vital role in developing the prioritisation model alongside UK Finance and the wider financial industry.
The priorities will allow regulated businesses to more effectively allocate resources on a cost-neutral basis, while continuing to maintain both their regulatory responsibilities and the preventative work that already keeps many thousands of customers safe.
Rachael Herbert, Director of the NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) said:
“The NECC views public private partnership at the heart of what we do, and we know that mutual benefit is key to making those partnerships effective.
“System prioritisation is designed to drive benefits for law enforcement, government and the UK regulated sector.”
By updating the way in which law enforcement and regulators work with the private sector, this work will allow all parties to ‘dial-up’ their response in areas where they can make the greatest difference, and ‘dial-down’ activity collectively agreed to be less impactful. Opportunities to free up additional resources include raising the threshold for reporting Defence Against Money Laundering (DAML) reports, and forthcoming changes to improve the effectiveness of the money laundering regulations.
Steve Smart, executive director and lead for fighting financial crime at the FCA, said:
“A single set of UK-wide priorities gives firms, and the wider system, helpful clarity.
“The FCA is committed to working with partners across the public and private sectors to ensure resources are directed where they’re most needed to protect people, markets and the wider financial system.”
Ben Donaldson, Managing Director of Economic Crime, UK Finance said:
“This new approach to prioritising our key threats and ensuring we use public and private sector collective capabilities in a more effective way has the potential to be a game changer for efforts to combat Economic Crime.
“We fully support a way of working that enables the financial services sector and the public sector to be better aligned and ensures maximum impact for our society.
“We can only fight organised crime by working effectively together.
“The identification of these priorities by the public sector, commitment from all to refocus efforts on these areas, and an enabling regulatory and supervisory approach is an important step forward in our joint effort to protect people from harm”.
Further guidance will be issued to help firms interpret the priorities alongside the Government’s NRA.
21 July 2025
