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Among other characteristics, money laundering notably occurs across national borders and primarily through banks, mainly because banks, which are both legitimate and ‘ubiquitous’ financial services institutions, engage primarily in financial intermediation (Barry-Johnston 2005; Chaikin 2011, 2017; Tsingou 2010; Zucman 2015, and others). Therefore, as the natural logical choice of launderers of “soiled funds”, a key question implicit in this chapter is: could effective corporate governance in financial institutions, particularly banks, possibly mitigate or stop this corrupt use of formal financial services institutions and markets? Money laundering dates back many years and is linked to banking and investment transactions that are carried out in presumed “safe” environments. It mainly manifests in individuals and firms hiding their earnings and ill-gotten funds from authorities as to avoid being found out, circumventing taxes and/or the capturing of their pertinent data. Over time—from 2000 BC in China to September 11, 2001 in the US—there has been a flow of illicit funds in the guise of varying activities, and there have been counter efforts to discourage these largely due to the impact of the underlying illegal activities. This iterative process culminated in today’s set of anti-money laundering laws and initiatives such as FIU, FICA, AUSRAC, FATF, Patriot Act, and so on (Morris-Cotterill 2001; Unger 2013; Zucman 2015; and others).

Clearly, for these mitigating and/or preventive initiatives to be effective, the levers for implementation must be in the grasp of government to a reasonable extent. The formal legitimate platforms co-opted into these illegal, if not …