“The industrialization of Financial Crime”
That was my answer in a recent panel discussion when the host asked me about the most important trend in financial crime.
In this short article I explain what this means, and how we can counter it.
Author: Ian Wachters, Senior Commercial Advisor, Roseman Labs.
Why banks must move from isolation to Trusted Collective Intelligence.
Financial crime has evolved from isolated incidents into a sophisticated, industrialized ecosystem. Just as ransomware gave rise to “Ransomware-as-a-Service”, today’s dark web marketplaces offer plug-and-play solutions for fraud, identity theft, and even money laundering.
Criminals no longer need technical expertise, they can simply purchase pre-built scam kits, rent bank accounts, or outsource laundering schemes to underground service providers.
The industrialization of financial crime has turned a technical problem into a systemic one. Criminals collaborate effortlessly across borders and channels. It’s time for the institutions fighting them to do the same, only within a framework of trust, legality, and privacy.
Countering the trend through Trusted Collective Intelligence
How to counter this? Similar to ransomware, the answer is “collaboration”.
In ransomware more and more initiatives, national and international, are emerging in which public and private parties share details of ransomware attacks. A great example of this is the now annual report of the Dutch National Cyber Security Center.
More important than the annual overview is the underlying collaboration mechanism: on a weekly basis more than 100 organizations in the Netherlands share highly sensitive information with the NCSC which enables them to define concrete counter measures and to inform law enforcement to go after the criminal groups behind these attacks.
Just as the cybersecurity community learned to leverage their collective intelligence to combat ransomware, the financial sector must now do the same to counter the industrialization of fraud and money laundering.
Until recently such collaboration models have been unthinkable in the banking space for two reasons:
- Lack of a legal basis for information sharing
- Concerns about data privacy and security
Article 75 AMLR: A Legal Framework for Collaboration
The EU’s proposed Article 75 of the AML Regulation (AMLR) is game-changing. It provides a legal foundation for information sharing partnerships among obliged entities, including banks, payment institutions, and even FinTechs. Article 75 enables:
- Cross-organizational and cross-border information sharing
- Collaborative approaches to transaction monitoring
- Exchange of risk scores, alerts, and due diligence findings
Crucially, it says that information sharing must be proportional and controlled, by using the right data privacy and security techniques. The ideal approach to this is the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), such as Multi-Party Computation (MPC), to ensure that data sharing complies with GDPR and meets the highest data security standards.
Privacy-Preserving Collaboration: The Role of Roseman Labs
At Roseman Labs, we believe that privacy and collaboration are not mutually exclusive. Our MPC-powered Encrypted Computing platform, allows institutions to analyze sensitive data collectively - without revealing the underlying data to each other.
This means banks can:
- Detect complex laundering schemes across institutions
- Share intelligence securely and legally
- Maintain full control over their data
- Comply with GDPR and AMLR simultaneously
Roseman Labs technology is a cornerstone of the aforementioned Dutch NCSC ransomware approach. In a similar way, it is ready to support the implementation of Article 75. A first example of that was delivered during a sandbox program of the Central Bank of Ireland. Roseman Labs and spotixx, a German company specialized in data driven AML and Fraud solutions, have developed Qorum.
Qorum is the first interbank information-sharing platform powered by Article 75 and Multi-Party Computation, uniting the technical and domain expertise of two leaders in Encrypted Computing and financial-crime intelligence.
Why Banks and Regulators Must Act Now
The industrialization of financial crime is happening now. Dark web platforms like STYX Marketplace offer fraud-as-a-service, anti-detect software, and laundering pipelines with customer support and escrow systems. Criminals are collaborating. If banks don’t do the same, they will fall behind.
Moreover, regulators are watching. The EU’s AMLR and PSR all point toward greater harmonization, transparency, and cross-institutional accountability. Article 75 is not just an opportunity; it’s a signal that collaboration is becoming a regulatory expectation.
To truly move forward in the fight against financial crime, banks must move beyond internal controls and toward shared intelligence ecosystems. Privacy-preserving technologies like MPC make this possible - securely, legally, and at scale.
Roseman Labs stands ready to support this transformation. With our Encrypted Computing platform, institutions can collaborate without compromise. The tools exist. The legal framework is emerging. The threat is real.
Now is the time to act.
Generate new insights on sensitive data with Roseman Labs’ secure Multi-Party Computation technology. Want to find out how your organization can do that? Contact us using the form below.
