UK financial institutions are stepping up their fight against money laundering and fraud, but the threat is evolving fast.

According to BioCatch’s inaugural Dark Economy Survey, 65% of UK fraud and compliance leaders believe criminal enterprises are now more sophisticated at laundering money than the banks trying to catch them.

The report, “Insights into the Invisible: Perspectives on Evolving Fraud and AML Challenges”, draws on responses from 800 financial crime professionals across 17 countries, including the UK, and reveals mounting concern about the Dark Economy—criminal networks that exploit the global financial system to move illicit funds tied to human trafficking, drug crime, and terrorism.

“The Dark Economy is a real phenomenon; it poses a significant threat to banks and their customers,” said Jonathan Frost, Director of Global Advisory for EMEA at BioCatch. “Combatting that threat necessitates that banks embrace behaviour to identify risk.” “However, the fight is far from over; countering organised crime requires that we organise ourselves in a way that enables innovative, real-time collaboration”.

UK financial institutions stand out globally for their investment in behaviour-based detection technologies. Over four in five (84%) respondents say their organisations already use behaviour-based analytics to detect fraud, significantly above the global average (76%).

More than half (57%) expect to increase their technology spend in the next year, with many calling for stronger tools to address the top challenges of data privacy (39%), cybersecurity (36%), and complex regulations (31%).

Despite these investments, nearly half (44%) of UK respondents say their organisations incur annual fraud losses between £8 million and £20 million, notably higher than the global average of 26% for that range. Additionally, 11% of UK respondents cite losses of £20 million to £40 million, while 2% report losses exceeding £40 million. Globally, the most frequent fraud loss bracket is £4 million to £8 million, reported by 27% of respondents.

A staggering 89% of respondents agree that combatting money laundering on a larger scale requires more regulatory intervention, while only 13% say individual bad actors are more likely to perpetrate fraud than criminal groups. According to Nasdaq’s Global Financial Crime Report, $3.1 trillion in illicit funds moved through the world’s financial system in 2023 alone. That estimate might be conservative.

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The survey also found that around two thirds (65%) of UK respondents say that criminal groups are more sophisticated than financial institutions when it comes to fraud.

Alarmingly, less than a fifth (19%) of UK professionals report involving law enforcement in over half of suspected cases.

Less than half (46%) of UK respondents share intelligence with other banks weekly but barriers remain in privacy rules (28%), data breach concerns (25%), and risk of information misuse (25%).

About three quarters (77%) of respondents believe global banks are winning the fight against financial crime, but only 55% feel their organisations is making an impact.

The research also found that only 18% of global respondents feel confident in identifying money mule accounts.

Overall, 84% of all respondents say tackling the Dark Economy is critical to financial crime prevention.