Losses increased by 8.3% annually, driven by rising compliance costs and London’s continuing role as a global hub for foreign capital flows.

Data from the Napier AI / AML Index 2025 – 2026 found that global financial institutions could save £183 billion annually through AI-driven anti-money laundering (AML) solutions.

The findings were shared at The World Anti-Corruption Conference, hosted by International Strategy Institute (ISI), focusing on financial innovation, integrity, governance and key proposals to combat corruption.

Panel speaker, Dr Janet Bastiman, Chief Data Scientist at Napier AI, commented: “Money laundering is not a challenge that financial services firms can solve alone. It needs a coordinated effort across the industry, regulatory and technology providers, supported by robust risk management frameworks to meet shifting regulatory expectations.”

“AI has the power to automate a lot of financial services operations, such as anti-money laundering for financial crime compliance. Data-driven, automated transaction monitoring, for example, can identify unusual patterns more quickly than a human. However, we should not simply implement AI for AI’s sake. Rather than replacing human judgement, AI acts as an intelligent co-pilot, augmenting analysts’ ability to identify, explain and act on corruption indicators.”

To combat current gaps, organisations believe that AI could be a solution, with 73 per cent describing it as very useful for transaction flagging, while 27 per cent ranked AI as the single most effective tool in detecting suspicious activity within AML processes.

Despite a series of high-profile investigations and fines from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and National Crime Agency (NCA), as well as a series of police raids against barber shops and sweet stores linked to suspicious activity across the country, money laundering losses in the UK have risen from £135 billion to £146 billion within a year.