Combating money laundering and terrorist financing

Money laundering refers to an activity whose goal is to hide the origin of certain assets or money. The funds that are the subject of money laundering are illegal because money laundering requires a predicate offence for money laundering, from which the funds originate. It is a global problem and various actors, and regulations are trying to influence it. When talking about money laundering, the financing of terrorism also often comes up. These crimes often have a similar method, the difference is the goal of the act. In money laundering, the goal is to get funds from criminal sources in to the legal financial system, while in terror-ism, funds from legal sources are often used for illegal purposes. The aim of this thesis is to give a comprehensive picture of the regulation relat-ed to combating money laundering and terrorist financing in Finland and the banking sector. The thesis describes the processes, legal regulations, theory and history of money laundering and terrorist financing. In addition to this, the thesis has dealt with various risk assessments, reporting obligations and admin-istrative sanctions imposed on banks. Money laundering and the financing of terrorism is a topical issue, and these crimes have a great impact on society. Researching, summarizing the subject area, and bringing out the essential points for supervision is important for banks, so that the supervision of money laundering and terrorist financing could be carried out as required by the legisla-tion. The thesis was implemented as a theoretical thesis. The aim of the thesis was to find out what money laundering is, how does money laundering take place in practice and how is money laundering monitored and combated. The material is mainly based on official sources such as the publications and guidelines of the Financial Supervisory Authority and the police. Legislation has also been largely discussed in the thesis, focusing on the law on preventing money laundering and terrorism and the law on the Financial Supervisory Authority. The thesis ends with conclusions, which also includes an evaluation of the thesis process and one’s own learning