Global anti-money laundering enforcement intensified throughout 2025, with regulators across Europe, the Americas, APAC and the Middle East issuing record penalties, expanding supervisory powers and signalling far less tolerance for weak controls.
Banks, FinTech firms, crypto platforms and professional services firms were all in scope, underlining how AML expectations now extend well beyond traditional financial institutions, claims KYC360.
In Europe, UK regulators remained particularly active. In July, neobank Monzo was fined £21m for serious and prolonged failings in its AML controls between 2018 and 2020. The Financial Conduct Authority identified weaknesses across customer due diligence, ongoing monitoring, the handling of high-risk customers and the reporting of suspicious activity. The case was widely seen as a warning to fast-growing FinTechs about the risks of scaling without equivalent investment in compliance infrastructure.
That same month, Barclays received a £42m fine after the FCA found serious weaknesses in how the bank identified and managed financial crime risks in two high-risk client relationships linked to WealthTek and Stunt & Co. The enforcement action highlighted persistent challenges in managing complex client structures and heightened risk exposure, even at large, established institutions.
Outside the banking sector, 2025 marked a turning point for professional services. UK law firms faced the largest AML penalties ever imposed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. Several firms were issued six-figure fines for failures spanning firm-wide AML risk assessments, client and matter risk scoring, politically exposed person identification and source-of-funds checks, reinforcing regulators’ expectations that gatekeepers play a frontline role in combating illicit finance.
Elsewhere in Europe, Lithuania’s central bank fined Revolut €3.5m in April for deficiencies in monitoring business relationships and transactions, while the Central Bank of Ireland imposed a €21m penalty on Coinbase for breaches of AML and counter-terrorist financing monitoring obligations between 2021 and 2025.
In the Americas, enforcement actions reached unprecedented scale. In February, crypto exchange OKX, operated by Aux Cayes Fintech Ltd., agreed to pay more than $500m in penalties for AML violations, including allowing users to trade without adequate KYC checks and facilitating billions of dollars in suspicious transactions. In the US, Block Inc faced multiple penalties. In January, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered up to $120m in consumer redress and imposed a civil penalty for failures in fraud dispute handling and customer support. This was followed in April by a $40m AML penalty from US banking regulators, citing weaknesses in identity verification and transaction monitoring. Robinhood was also fined $45m by the Securities and Exchange Commission for failures including delayed suspicious activity reporting and inadequate cybersecurity controls.
Regulators in APAC and the Middle East were similarly active. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority fined three banks a combined HK$16.2m for significant AML and CTF deficiencies, while in the UAE the central bank imposed Dh18.1m in fines on two foreign banks and Dh200m on an exchange house for breaches of federal AML laws.
At the global policy level, the Financial Action Task Force updated its grey list several times during 2025. Laos and Nepal were added in February, followed by Bolivia and the British Virgin Islands in June. The Philippines was removed in February, with Croatia, Mali and Tanzania following in June, and Senegal exiting the list in October.
Beyond AML enforcement, corruption cases continued to dominate headlines. Ukraine pursued a series of high-profile anti-corruption investigations, including a probe into an alleged $100m kickback scheme in the energy sector that ultimately led to the resignation of Andriy Yermak. In France, former president Nicolas Sarkozy was sentenced in September to five years in prison for illegal Libyan funding of his 2007 election campaign.
Regulatory reform also gathered pace. The UK confirmed plans to consolidate AML supervision of the legal and accountancy sectors under the FCA and continued implementing Companies House reforms under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. In the EU, the new Anti-Money Laundering Authority formally began work in Frankfurt, while MiCA entered its first full year of phased application. Australia, meanwhile, progressed its Tranche 2 reforms, extending AML obligations to a wide range of gatekeeper professions.
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