Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The Wolfsberg Group is an association of twelve global banks, which aims to develop financial services industry standards, and related products, for Know Your Customer, Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing policies.

The Group came together in 2000, at the Château Wolfsberg in north-eastern Switzerland, in the company of representatives from Transparency International.

The Wolfsberg Anti-Money Laundering Principles for Private Banking were subsequently published in October
2000 (and revised in May 2002). The Group then published a Statement on the Financing of Terrorism in January 2002, and also released the Wolfsberg Anti-Money Laundering Principles for Correspondent Banking in November 2002 and the Wolfsberg Statement on Monitoring Screening and Searching in September 2003. In 2004, the Wolfsberg Group focused on the development of a due diligence model for financial institutions, in co-operation with Banker's Almanac, thereby fulfilling one of the recommendations made in the Correspondent Banking Principles. During 2005 and early 2006, the Wolfsberg Group of banks actively worked on four separate papers, all of which aim to provide guidance with regard to a number of areas of banking activity where standards had yet to be fully articulated by lawmakers or regulators. It was hoped that these papers would provide general assistance to industry participants and regulatory bodies when shaping their own policies and guidance, as well as making a valuable contribution to the fight against money laundering. The papers were all published in June 2006, and consisted of two sets of guidance: Guidance on a Risk Based Approach for Managing Money Laundering Risks and AML Guidance for Mutual Funds and Other Pooled Investment Vehicles.


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