Every week, compliance and financial crime teams across the world are working through new enforcement actions, new regulatory guidance, and new expectations. Most of it moves fast enough that it is easy to miss. Compliance Watch pulls together what actually matters from the past week, organized by region, so your team can walk into Monday already caught up.
Here is what happened last week.
Nigeria
Regulatory Updates
CBN warns on wrongly credited funds, SEC faces pressure on tokenisation rules, and state gaming regulators push back on FCCPC
CBN: At its annual CBN Listens programme in Ibadan on October 22, the CBN warned that fraudulently accessing another person’s account, or keeping money wrongly transferred into your account, can attract penalties including imprisonment of 5 to 10 years. It also reminded customers that banks must acknowledge complaints within three days, after which customers can escalate to the CBN’s Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion Department, and it highlighted the non-resident BVN for Nigerians abroad and the Nigerian Payments System Vision 2028. For banks, this reinforces the expectation that wrongly credited funds, dormant account activity and complaint handling timelines are supervised issues.
SEC: At the National Capital Market Conference in Abuja on October 19, the SEC unveiled the Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan 2.0, a 10-year roadmap to grow the market from about ₦250 trillion to ₦750 trillion by 2036. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Capital Market and Institutions used the occasion to press the SEC to speed up its digital asset and tokenisation regulations, warning that delays could cost Nigeria investment opportunities. The SEC’s proposed digital asset rules, published for comment on August 20, remain the framework to watch.
FCCPC: The Federation of State Gaming Regulators of Nigeria opposed parts of the FCCPC’s Sales Promotion Regulations 2026, arguing that provisions on registering promotions, issuing certificates, suspending or revoking approvals and overseeing prize draws overreach into lotteries and games of chance that fall under state regulation. The dispute is a reminder that overlapping federal and state mandates can create real uncertainty for operators and promoters about which regulator to answer to.
NFIU and EFCC: No new NFIU or EFCC policy announcements were identified this week beyond court activity, following the NFIU, GIABA and SecFIN Africa training of 100 officials that ended on October 16 ahead of Nigeria’s mock mutual evaluation in November.
AML/CFT & Financial Crime
EFCC arraignments span cross-border remittances, insurance premiums and land deals, as the Emefiele trial turns on evidence
The EFCC had a busy week in the courts, and the cases show how varied financial crime exposure is. On October 20, a Sierra Leonean man, Favour Foday Kamara, was arraigned in Lagos over an alleged $190,324 fraud in which a US-based woman is said to have sent money through Ria, Western Union, MoneyGram and cash transfers into his Access Bank account to buy and renovate a property. The EFCC says the property was bought in his name and that he collects rent from it. The same day, Abraham Idowu Abiara was arraigned in Lagos over an alleged $626,282 fraud, and three men were arraigned over the alleged conversion of ₦276.8 million paid by subscribers to Alico Insurance Plc for insurance policies. Elsewhere, four people were arraigned in Maiduguri over an alleged ₦44.7 million contract fraud involving forged documents, and an Abuja businesswoman was arraigned over an alleged ₦100 million land fraud. In the high-profile Emefiele trial, the EFCC and the former CBN governor were reported to differ over the evidence in the alleged fraudulent $6.23 million CBN withdrawal and contract fraud case. These are allegations, and every defendant is presumed innocent until a court rules. For institutions, the common thread is that ordinary accounts, remittance channels and customer payments are where these cases start, which is why transaction monitoring and customer due diligence keep coming up in prosecutions.
United Kingdom
Regulatory Updates
UK agencies agree nine economic crime priorities, and the FCA consults on DeFi guidance
The NCA, FCA, HMRC, the Home Office and the Treasury agreed nine economic crime priorities for the regulated sector, covering international money laundering through UK corporate structures and underground banking, money mule networks, professional enablers and sanctions evasion. Regulated firms should read the list as a guide to where supervisors will focus their attention next. The FCA also opened a consultation on guidance for regulated firms providing financial services using decentralised finance, covering operational resilience, financial crime rules and the Money Laundering Regulations.
AML/CFT & Financial Crime
L&L Europe pays £900,000 after the Gambling Commission finds controls based on thresholds, not customer risk
The Gambling Commission reached a £900,000 regulatory settlement with L&L Europe after finding that its AML controls relied largely on financial thresholds rather than customer risk profiles, and that customer due diligence procedures were not followed. The case also involved withdrawal delays and safer gambling failures. It is another example of a regulator treating a threshold only approach as a weakness in itself.
Europe
Regulatory Updates
AMLA and OLAF agree a framework to share anti-fraud and financial crime intelligence
The EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority and the European Anti-Fraud Office signed a working arrangement to strengthen cooperation and share operational and strategic information. It allows OLAF to contribute anti-fraud expertise to AMLA-coordinated joint analyses, subject to the consent of the participating financial intelligence units. It is a further sign that fraud and AML supervision in Europe are being joined up.
AML/CFT & Financial Crime
Albania formalises corruption and laundering charges against its former deputy prime minister
Albanian prosecutors formalised charges against former deputy prime minister Belinda Balluku, including alleged violations relating to public tenders, passive corruption involving high-ranking state officials and laundering the proceeds of criminal activity. Politically exposed persons remain one of the most closely watched risk categories, and cases like this one are why PEP screening needs to be ongoing, not a one-time onboarding check.
Global
Regulatory Updates
FinCEN refers $270 million of suspected student aid fraud, and the OCC publishes its October enforcement actions
FinCEN: On October 21, FinCEN said it had identified approximately $270 million in suspicious financial activity potentially linked to fraud against federal student aid programs and referred the findings to federal authorities. The same day, FinCEN took part in Treasury’s Iran shadow fleet action. It also continues to apply its October 1 alert on the A7 Network, which asks institutions to reference the key term FIN-2026-A7NETWORK in suspicious activity reports.
OCC: The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released its enforcement actions for October on October 22, covering actions against banks and institution affiliated individuals. The release follows the OCC’s record $750 million penalty against Bank of America earlier in the month, a reminder that US supervisors are holding both institutions and individuals accountable.
AML/CFT & Financial Crime
OFAC keeps designating while the White House waives new Russia-related measures under the Graham Act
OFAC was active throughout the week. It issued Iran-related and Cuba designations alongside new and amended general licenses, made designations under the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act aimed at intellectual property theft, and on October 21 announced a new round of Iran shadow fleet designations under Operation Economic Outcast, together with Belarus and North Korea removals and wind-down general licenses for the blocked vessels. In a separate development, President Trump waived the new sanctions, restrictions and tariffs set out in the Lindsey O. Graham Act, citing US national interests, with the waiver remaining in place until the President or Secretary of State decides further action is appropriate. Sanctions exposure is shifting in both directions at once, and screening has to catch additions, removals and changing licences equally well.
What This Means for Your Compliance Program
The pattern this week is that supervisors are telling firms exactly where they are looking, and courts are showing where cases begin. The UK agencies published a list of nine priorities, Europe is joining up its fraud and AML bodies, and Nigeria’s courts heard cases that started with ordinary bank accounts, remittances and customer premiums. Firms that rely on fixed thresholds, one-time checks or infrequent list updates are the ones most likely to be caught out. Risk-based monitoring, ongoing PEP and sanctions screening, and the ability to explain why a customer was rated the way they were are what stand up under review.
If your team wants a second look at how your screening and monitoring would hold up, that is worth a conversation. Reach out to Probe Compliance at probecompliance.com/contact to see how institutions across Nigeria, the UK, and other African countries are closing that gap.
Compliance Watch is a weekly roundup from Probe Compliance covering regulatory updates, AML/CFT and financial crime, and industry developments across Nigeria, Africa, Europe, and the rest of the world. Check back next week for the latest.