Perception versus reality: Iranian banks and international anti-money laundering expectations

What is it about?

The paper investigates the extent to which Iranian banks facilitate money laundering. The country has been blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force for its failure to counteract money laundering. However and counterintuitively, we find that Iranian banks have internal risk management systems which comply to a meaningful extent with the requirements of the Wolfsberg Group. The country's blacklisting seems to be attributable to its failure to accede to international conventions, and not solely because of systemic weaknesses in the banking sector.

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