Anti-money-laundering oversight and banks’ reporting of suspicious transactions: some empirical evidence
利用意大利央行和金融情报单位的详细数据，研究了反洗钱检查对银行识别和报告可疑交易的影响，发现检查后银行报告数量增加且质量未下降，信息量整体提升。
Abstract We investigate the relation between anti-money-laundering (AML) inspections and banks’ ability and effort to identify and report suspicious transactions. We do so by using detailed data from the Bank of Italy and the Italian Financial Intelligence Unit, which include information on (i) authorities’ on-site inspections and enforcement actions, (ii) quantity and quality of suspicious transactions reports filed by banks before and after inspections, and (iii) reports’ investigative follow-ups. We document an increase in banks’ reporting after an inspection. Crucially, the increase is not concentrated among low-quality reports, but is spread to reports which are relevant from both a financial and an investigative point of view. We thus overall observe a rise in the information conveyed by AML reports after the authorities’ intervention. On the mechanism of the effect, we provide some suggestive evidence that inspections induce an increase of both banks’ reporting effort as well as screening skills.