Encompass Corporation is a Know Your Customer (KYC) solutions firm; for 2019 they found that there were 58 AML-related breaches globally with the US accounting for 25 fines totaling $2.29 billion; the UK had 12 penalties totaling $388.4 million; the number of AML penalties continue to steadily rise each year and in some cases the penalty amounts are reaching over $1 billion; interestingly under half of those penalties issued in 2019 were to banks, a decrease from 2018; it is expected that new directives in the EU will increase penalties into 2020 and beyond. Finextra
