Over 100 leaders in disrupting financial crime gathered this week at Wolfsberg for the Group’s annual forum. More than 20 countries were represented from across the world – national financial intelligence unit heads, regulatory and policy authorities, global systemically important banks, international fintechs and the largest digital asset exchanges – along with key intergovernmental organisations such as the FATF, the Egmont Group, the UNODC, the IFC and the IMF.

In the words of FATF President Elisa de Anda, who opened the Forum along with Wolfsberg Group Co-Chair Stevenson Munro:

The FATF has long recognised the importance of fostering dialogue between the public and the private sector. That is why we hosted the Learning and Development Forum in February, and why it is important for us to take part in the Wolfsberg Group Forum. These events are key milestones in shared ongoing efforts to bring the public and private sectors together in a united front against the most pressing AML/CFT issues. Working collaboratively from the outset helps us shape how we collectively think about effectiveness and risk-based decisions – and that makes all the difference in finding workable solutions.

This year’s forum focused on the convergence of three systemic, global challenges in disrupting financial crime that the Wolfsberg members see as an opportunity for private and public sector leaders to redesign the approach to supervision, compliance and risk management:

• First, the number of obliged entities continues to grow, stretching the capacity of supervisory authorities, from fintechs to digital asset service providers, and from stablecoin issuers to non-financial and professional “enablers”, forcing reflection on opportunities for true, responsible risk-based supervision.
• Second, increasing examples of the power of private-to-private information sharing and operational public-private frameworks, including on a cross-border basis, which have demonstrated such obvious value-added in disrupting criminal networks that it calls into question the way current compliance programmes are structured and assessed if our ultimate objective is effective outcomes.
• And finally, the advent and accessibility of artificial intelligence, which is rapidly increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of private and public sector capabilities, surfacing new challenges and opportunities on responsible innovation in the use of generative and agentic AI, and placing greater emphasis on feedback to support and encourage supervised and unsupervised learning.

The 2026 Annual Wolfsberg Group Forum addressed these challenges directly. Through a series of structured debates and breakout sessions, the Wolfsberg members worked to build consensus among the participants in embracing a global financial crime risk management framework rooted in effective outcomes and fuelled by innovation.

Technology is reshaping the AML/CFT landscape as we know it – and with it comes both new opportunities and new risks,

explained the FATF’s Executive Secretary, Violaine Clerc.

To keep pace with this innovation, we must work across sectors and borders to build smarter, integrated data, strengthen partnerships, and harness digitalisation as a force multiplier in our fight against criminals. Modernising and transforming the way we work is no longer simply about efficiency or convenience – it is key to closing the door on crime.

Highlights over the three days included:

• A series of sessions focused on defining the key performance indicators (KPIs) for a financial crime risk management programme based on effective outcomes. Leading FIUs and law enforcement agencies from around the globe pulled back the curtain on how they assess the substantive value of suspicious activity reporting, while private sector leaders shared their own measures of effectiveness in detecting, disrupting, and preventing financial crime. All participants contributed to a repository of top KPIs for effectiveness that will inform work within the Wolfsberg Secretariat going forward.

• Public-private-civil society hybrid breakout groups dedicated to developing cross-border operational sprints on fentanyl networks in North America, trade-based money laundering between Asia and the Americas, fraud scam networks from the UK and EU into southeast Asia, and terror finance cells operating in Africa. The sprints were designed by employing the UNODC’s financial disruption methodology, an operational planning approach crafted by the UNODC to enhance interagency and private-public collaboration in attacking illicit finance. During the forum, national FIUs and critical policymakers, including IGOs, pledged to support the operational sprints in collaboration with the Wolfsberg Group Secretariat.

In the words of Egmont Group Chair Elzbieta Frankow-Jaskiewicz,

effective collaboration between financial intelligence units and the private sector is essential to connect fragmented information and turn it into actionable intelligence… technology can help scale this collaboration, but only when anchored in clear governance and real operational use cases. Technology should serve the partnership, not substitute for it.

• A heavy focus on building and maintaining a responsible approach for exercising risk-based supervision, combining onsite and offsite/remote methods and inculcating a culture of partnership between financial institutions and supervisors that recognises the shared objectives of reducing harm to individuals while protecting the international financial system.

As captured by the current FATF Vice President Giles Thomson:

The evidence is clear - Public Private Partnership is crucial to make a real difference and address evolving risks, including the rising threat of fraud. The FATF will continue to use its convening power to drive close, ongoing dialogue between the public and private sectors to develop a common understanding of what effectiveness looks like and where the threats and vulnerabilities lie. This shared understanding is the foundation for meaningful risk-based actions, and the key to achieving real change.

Polling of the participants during the forum indicated that 75% of the attendees believe we are in a technological moment where what is more effective is increasingly also more efficient for financial crime risk management. This year, as in 2025, all participants were pressed to make a concrete, measurable personal commitment to improving our approach to financial crime disruption that the Wolfsberg Group Secretariat will then track over the year.

Reflecting on progress made on commitments over 2025 and into 2026, Wolfsberg Group Executive Secretary J. Edward Conway noted:

Our progress over the past year demonstrated a community actively moving from intention to experimentation and execution, with notable progress in collaboration, infrastructure, and shared understanding of risk, while accepting that durable change – especially in supervision and cross border frameworks – requires sustained, multi year effort.

In observing the depth of discussion and the numerous commitments made by the attendees during this year’s forum, Conway predicted:

We’re now moving on from experimentation and pilot work into proper at-scale implementation of a global framework that puts effective outcomes first.