The UK Government has published its new Anti-money laundering and asset recovery strategy 2026–2029, setting out an ambitious three-year plan to strengthen the UK’s response to money laundering and improve the recovery of criminal assets.
Backed by at least £550 million of investment, the strategy aims to make the UK a more hostile environment for illicit finance, while improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the wider anti-money laundering (AML) regime.
The strategy recognises that money laundering remains a significant threat to the UK’s national security, economy and communities. It also highlights a realistic possibility that more than £100 billion is laundered through or within the UK, or through UK-registered company structures each year. Money laundering continues to facilitate a range of criminal activities, including fraud, drug trafficking, people smuggling, corruption and terrorism, all of which undermines confidence in legitimate businesses and financial institutions.
At the heart of the strategy are three key objectives: to make the UK’s defences against money laundering more effective and efficient, to disrupt criminal money laundering networks and to recover more criminal assets. The Government has structured its approach around three delivery pillars: Target, Integrate and Empower. These pillars are intended to focus resources on the highest-risk threats, improve information sharing across agencies and sectors, and provide law enforcement and supervisors with enhanced skills, technology and legal powers.
Several proposals are particularly relevant to firms operating within the regulated sector. The strategy signals a move towards more intelligence-led and risk-based supervision, with a stated aim of reducing low-value “box-ticking” activity and concentrating efforts on outcomes that genuinely reduce financial crime risk. It also places renewed emphasis on tackling professional enablers of money laundering, improving the quality and accessibility of beneficial ownership information, and strengthening the UK’s ability to trace and recover assets, including those held in cryptoassets.
The Government also intends to strengthen collaboration between the public and private sectors, including the development of a new national financial intelligence capability to better identify and disrupt illicit finance. By 2029, it expects to see more criminal assets recovered, more money laundering networks dismantled, stronger intelligence sharing, improved supervision plus increased use of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence in the fight against economic crime.
For AML regulated firms, the direction of travel is clear. Regulators are likely to focus increasingly on the effectiveness of firms’ AML frameworks and their ability to demonstrate meaningful risk management, rather than simply evidencing compliance with prescribed processes. The strategy therefore serves as an important reminder that a risk-based, outcomes-focused approach to AML compliance remains central to regulatory expectations.
