On 27 February 2025, over 450 financial crime and compliance professionals gathered in London for FFECON25: The Art of Risk. Organised by FINTRAIL, FFECON is an industry-leading conference that brings together fintechs, banks, regtechs, and industry experts to explore the evolving challenges in financial crime risk management and develop practical and implementable strategies to enhance compliance frameworks. Each year, FFECON adopts a unique theme to address the most pressing issues facing the industry, fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the industry.
This year’s event focused on the complexities of managing financial crime risks in high-risk verticals while maintaining financial inclusion and business growth. Through expert-led panel discussions and special guest presentations, attendees gained insights into regulatory expectations, and the latest trends shaping the financial crime landscape. The conference also provided a valuable opportunity for professionals to network, exchange best practices, and engage in thought-provoking conversations about the future of financial crime compliance.
Below, we highlight key takeaways from the sessions and how firms can apply these insights to enhance their financial crime controls.
🎙️ Adults Only - Banking the Adult Entertainment Sector
Our closing panel for FFECON25 shone a spotlight on the challenges of banking the adult entertainment sector.
Financial institutions often lack awareness of how the adult entertainment industry operates and where the true risks lie. Despite being a legal, multi-billion-dollar industry, many financial institutions continue to apply blanket de-risking, often influenced by moral bias rather than evidence-based risk assessments.
📌 Key Takeaways
The adult entertainment sector encompasses various sub-industries, each with distinct risk profiles that can inform a nuanced risk appetite.
Effective, proportionate controls can enable safe and sustainable engagement with the sector. In fact, as a multi-billion dollar global industry, it offers significant growth opportunities for financial institutions if managed in the right way.
Regulatory oversight is evolving, with measures such as the UK Online Safety Act shaping compliance expectations.
💪 Enhancing Controls
Firms should develop evidence-based risk management frameworks that distinguish between different areas of the adult entertainment industry rather than applying blanket de-risking. A thorough understanding of the operational models, payment flows, and compliance risks within each sub-sector can help firms establish proportionate controls that support financial inclusion while mitigating financial crime risks.
This echoes what the consultancy team at FINTRAIL have been seeing while working with clients that are seeking to take advantage of the growth opportunities presented by this sector.
FINTRAIL has worked with financial institutions to refine their risk assessment methodologies, ensuring that policies and procedures are well-calibrated to manage risks without unnecessary exclusions. Our expertise in high-risk verticals enables firms to navigate these challenges with confidence.
🎙️ What Actually Happens When You’re Sanctioned?
Moderated by Emil Dall, Head of Sanctions at FINTRAIL, this session sought to provide unique insights into the experiences of sanctioned individuals.
With the expansion of sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK has seen an increase in sanctioned individuals with domestic ties. However, many firms remain unclear on the process of designation, asset freezing, and licensing conditions.
📌 Key Takeaways
Sanctions compliance requires more than just screening; firms must understand how designations occur and how asset freezes are enforced.
The recent OFSI Financial Services Threat Assessment highlighted common compliance failures, including mismanagement of frozen assets and misunderstanding of licence conditions.
Firms need clear processes to identify when a licence is required and ensure they are compliant with UK sanctions regulations.
💪 Enhancing Controls
A well-rounded sanctions compliance programme should include clear internal guidance on designation processes, asset-freezing obligations, and licensing conditions. Regular staff training and scenario-based exercises can help firms stay prepared for real-world sanctions scenarios. In addition, firms should review their governance structures to ensure they have an effective escalation process in place for sanctions-related decisions.
FINTRAIL has helped firms strengthen their sanctions compliance frameworks through policy reviews, training, and independent assurance assessments. Our experience ensures financial institutions can manage complex sanctions requirements effectively—find out more.
🎙️ Fraud: Are We Losing the Battle?
The fight against fraud remains a moving target, with fraudsters continuously adapting their tactics. While some fraud types are declining, others—such as card fraud—are on the rise.
📌 Key Takeaways
While it was a ‘sometimes’ to ‘Are we winning the battle on fraud’ - it’s clear the combined efforts across the industry need to continue with better adoption of technology, reduced barriers to data sharing, and more investment in educating consumers.
A proactive fraud strategy must be informed by real-time data and the involvement of fraud and compliance teams early in the product design process.
Optimising friction, rather than minimising it, can enhance customer trust and security.
Data quality is critical—firms must learn how to extract meaningful insights while filtering out noise.
The UK’s Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act introduces new corporate obligations, including the ‘failure to prevent fraud’ offence, reinforcing the need for robust fraud prevention measures.
💪 Enhancing Controls
Firms need to take a holistic approach to fraud prevention, integrating fraud risk management into product development from the outset. Deploying intelligent friction can improve security without compromising customer experience. Leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning models can also enhance fraud detection by reducing false positives while identifying emerging threats.
FINTRAIL has worked with fintechs and financial institutions to refine their fraud risk strategies by delivering bespoke fraud risk assessments, conducting independent fraud reviews, and providing targeted training. A holistic approach is key in the battle against fraud.
🎙️ Business in the Danger Zone: Banking Customers from High-Risk Countries
The aim of this session was to challenge conventional wisdom around how to understand and manage country risk, considering new approaches and delivering actionable recommendations for managing and assessing geographic risks.
We learned that many firms rely too heavily on country risk ratings, leading to unnecessary de-risking and financial exclusion. A more nuanced, dynamic approach to risk assessment is needed.
📌 Key Takeaways
Risk should not be seen in binary terms—different aspects of country, customer, and transaction risks must be considered.
Compliance professionals have a collective responsibility to ensure that their risk frameworks don't punish the majority because of a small percentage of bad actors. Compliance frameworks should leverage actual data, such as SAR trends, to assess customer risk rather than defaulting to static rules.
Regulators and industry players must work together to refine risk assessment methodologies that balance financial inclusion and financial crime mitigation.
💪 Enhancing Controls
Firms should move beyond simplistic country risk models by adopting multi-dimensional risk assessments that incorporate transactional behaviours, business models, and historical trends. Enhancing due diligence processes with real-time monitoring and external intelligence sources can also help firms make informed decisions without resorting to unnecessary de-risking.
FINTRAIL has helped firms design dynamic risk assessment frameworks that enable compliance while supporting legitimate businesses. Our expertise in country risk and financial crime typologies ensures that firms can strike the right balance between risk mitigation and financial inclusion.
🎙️ Lawful but Awful: Navigating the Challenges of Combating Extremism Financing
Financial institutions have a role to play in combating extremism financing, but they must approach it in a systematic and informed way to avoid making ill-advised, ad-hoc decisions. The balance between proactive risk management and avoiding overreach is critical.
📌 Key Takeaways
A strong compliance framework should incorporate a comprehensive risk assessment, clear policies, and a well-defined risk appetite statement. Without these foundational elements, controls can be misaligned or ineffective.
Institutions need structured escalation and approval channels to ensure decisions are made with oversight and consistency, rather than on a case-by-case basis.
Training is essential—without sufficient awareness, staff may struggle to identify or respond to risks appropriately.
💪 Enhancing Controls
Firms looking to strengthen their approach to extremism financing should prioritise training, clear escalation procedures, and regular risk assessments. Ensuring screening tools and transaction monitoring systems are calibrated to detect relevant risks without excessive false positives is also key.
FINTRAIL has delivered training sessions and workshops on terrorism and extremism financing, as well as conducted risk assessments and screening tool assurance reviews for various clients. Our expertise helps institutions build frameworks that are both effective and proportionate.
🎙️ Managing Financial Crime Risk in an Integrated Ecosystem – Are We All in the Same Boat?
The fintech sector prides itself on bringing unique products to market, but how do these innovations fit into the broader financial ecosystem? This session explored the challenges of managing financial crime risks in an interconnected environment where fintechs and banks must collaborate to tackle evolving threats.
📌 KEY TAKEAWAYS
As fintechs mature, they face many of the same financial crime challenges as banks, including regulatory scrutiny and operational risks.
Industry collaboration has improved, but maintaining trust and information-sharing remains an ongoing challenge.
Managing a fintech customer base presents unique compliance nuances, requiring a tailored approach to risk assessment and monitoring.
De-risking continues to be a debated issue—firms must balance risk management with financial inclusion.
The rise of embedded finance adds new layers of complexity, requiring financial institutions to refine oversight mechanisms for third-party partnerships.
💪 Enhancing Controls
Firms operating within integrated financial ecosystems should prioritise strong governance frameworks, clear accountability for financial crime risks, and effective oversight of partnerships. Open communication between fintechs and banks, as well as engagement with regulators, is crucial to ensuring a cohesive approach to risk management.
FINTRAIL supports firms in navigating these challenges by helping them develop comprehensive financial crime risk management strategies that align with the realities of an interconnected financial landscape.
🎙️Turning Risk into Opportunity: Leveraging Crypto's Transparency for Enhanced Compliance
How can financial institutions turn crypto’s perceived risks into a compliance advantage? This was the central question explored in this panel. The session examined how crypto’s inherent transparency can enhance risk management and regulatory alignment. While often viewed as high-risk, crypto’s real-time, immutable blockchain data presents unique opportunities for financial crime prevention.
📌 Key Takeaways
Crypto’s transparency can offer a compliance advantage, enabling real-time tracking and more precise transaction monitoring than traditional finance.
A strong compliance foundation requires a thorough risk assessment, and clear understanding of product and customer exposure.
Engagement with the Crypto sector is key for FIs to understand the unique risks and controls.
The regulatory landscape is evolving, with increased scrutiny on privacy-enhancing tools and stricter KYC requirements for DeFi platforms.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) play a crucial role in shaping effective crypto compliance strategies.
💪 Enhancing Controls
To effectively manage financial crime risks in crypto, firms should start by building a strong compliance foundation. This may include designating a crypto SME within the organisation, conducting comprehensive risk assessments, and ensuring robust AML/KYC frameworks, sanctions screening, and cybersecurity controls. Compliance with the Travel Rule and regular independent audits are also key to regulatory alignment.
Blockchain analytics and AI-driven attribution tools can offer deeper insights into transaction flows, enabling firms to trace fund movements with greater precision. Leveraging these tools can enhance transaction monitoring, improve anomaly detection, and strengthen overall risk management.
FINTRAIL has extensive experience supporting firms in the crypto sector, from conducting risk assessments to advising on compliance frameworks and regulatory best practices. Our team helps financial institutions navigate the complexities of crypto compliance, ensuring they leverage the transparency of blockchain to strengthen their financial crime controls. Learn more about our work in the crypto space here.
Conclusion
FFECON25: The Art of Risk successfully brought together industry leaders to address some of the most pressing financial crime challenges, and to push the narrative on these topics beyond the comfort zone. The discussions underscored the need for proportionate, data-driven approaches to risk management that balance compliance obligations with financial inclusion.
As we look ahead to next year’s FFECON, the conversation continues. At FINTRAIL, we remain committed to supporting financial institutions in strengthening their risk frameworks, adapting to regulatory changes, and making informed decisions about financial crime compliance.