SET Training - Banking and Fintech

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), originally created to combat money laundering, has been increasingly weaponized by authoritarian regimes to silence dissent and suppress opposition. By exploiting the vaguely worded FATF standards, autocrats can freeze assets, harass activists, and even imprison critics under the guise of fighting financial crime. Key tactics employed by these regimes include: Data collection: Governments amass financial information on citizens and opposition figures, often using it to build cases against them. Asset freezing: Banks, fearing repercussions, comply with government requests to freeze accounts, leaving individuals financially crippled. Politically motivated arrests: Critics are detained on spurious financial crime charges, with lengthy pre-trial detentions becoming commonplace. Targeting exiles: Authoritarian states collaborate to pressure Western countries into freezing assets and extraditing dissidents living abroad. While the FATF has made eff...