The Cost of Anti Money Laundering

Financial privacy of any sort has long been much more accessible to the wealthy than to average people. Money plays an even bigger role in how much scrutiny banks ubject individual customers to. Anti money laundering measures have made profitability and wealth a greater factor ind who has access to globel banking, including when there really is suspicious activity. But fixing any of this presents a pernicious political double bind - bankers might not particularly want the anti money laundering system to be entirely effective but legislators are highly motivated to create the appearance of strong enforcement which winds up falling disproportionately on smaller fish.