Development of anti‐money laundering regime in Russia

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the domestic anti‐money laundering (AML) regime in Russia in its prevention pillar with the aim to test its compliance with the international standards. Design/methodology/approach - The comparative approach is used to analyze domestic regulations with the focus on the four key elements of the prevention pillar of any AML regime – customer due diligence, reporting, regulation and supervision and sanctions – for compliance with the main international documents regulating AML activities of the countries. Findings - The domestic AML regime in its prevention pillar which was created in 2002 has undergone significant changes. It is still far from complete and is being improved over time. No matter how the regime functions in reality, it mostly formally complies with the international AML requirements. Research limitations/implications - In using a comparative approach it has been necessary to see how compatible the created regime is with the international norms. Practical implications - The compliance is, however, conditional. The formal legislative compliance does not characterize the efficiency of the existing regime. How this legislation is applied in practice is the topic of the next step of our analysis. Originality/value - The efficiency of the global AML regime is a summarized efficiency of the domestic AML regimes. The most difficult part is to measure such efficiency. The more regimes are analyzed the more conditions are created for the assessment of the global regime efficiency.