Financial Integrity & Illicit Finance Control

618–907 · 1408 years ago

Tang dynasty China saw paper drafts and credit notes accepted as substitutes for metallic currency

High demand for metallic currency outstripped the supply of precious metals during the Tang dynasty, and a shortage of coins pushed people towards paper drafts. Familiarity with credit notes meant paper instruments were rapidly accepted, laying the groundwork for later state-issued money.

960–1276 · 1066 years ago

Sichuan traders under the Song dynasty issued private notes backed by a monetary reserve, the first ever legal tender

A booming Sichuan economy created a shortage of copper money, prompting traders to issue private notes covered by a reserve. The text identifies this as the first legal tender, an early instance of a monetary standard operating beyond a single issuer's coinage.

1276–1367 · 750 years ago

Yuan dynasty China made paper money the only legal tender

Under the Yuan, paper money became the sole legal tender, completing the transition away from metallic currency. This established fiat money as a state-backed monetary standard.

1368–1644 · 658 years ago

Ming dynasty China conferred note issuance on the Ministry of Finance

Issuing of notes was centralised in the Ministry of Finance during the Ming dynasty. This institutionalised control over money creation within a state administrative body rather than leaving it to private traders.

1865 · 161 years ago

France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland formed the Latin Monetary Union

The four states agreed common gold and silver coin standards to make their currencies mutually interchangeable, an early experiment in international monetary standardisation that collapsed within decades but prefigured later efforts at global financial coordination.

1940s · 86 years ago

Delegates from 44 nations at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire agreed the framework for the IMF and World Bank

Prompted by the Second World War, delegates from 44 nations met in Bretton Woods to determine the rules of post-war international trade and monetary policy. The conference laid out the frameworks for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, giving countries a measurable common basis for exchange rates and fair currency valuation rather than leaving it to individual national banks.

1970 · 56 years ago

The United States enacted the Bank Secrecy Act

The law required banks to report large cash transactions and keep records useful to criminal investigations, becoming the template that anti-money laundering reporting regimes in dozens of other countries were later built on.

1971 · 55 years ago

France reclaimed its gold from the United States, destabilising the dollar peg

Sceptical of the US dollar's role as the world's reserve currency, France reclaimed most of the gold it had exported to the US for safekeeping. Other nations followed in a rush to exchange dollars for gold, undermining the Bretton Woods system after roughly two decades.

1971 · 55 years ago

Richard Nixon removed the convertibility of the US dollar into gold

The United States ended the dollar's peg to gold, and other nations followed suit. This transformed international finance by making the world's reserve currency fiat money, backed by government decree rather than a physical commodity, and allowed fiat currencies to circulate internationally for the first time.

1974 · 52 years ago

The Group of Ten founded the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision

Central bank governors created the committee after the collapse of Germany's Herstatt Bank exposed the dangers of uncoordinated cross-border banking, beginning decades of work toward common international supervisory standards.

1988 · 38 years ago

The Basel Committee agreed the original Basel Accord on capital adequacy

Basel I set the first internationally recognised minimum capital standard for banks, requiring a set ratio of capital to risk-weighted assets and giving supervisors worldwide a shared benchmark for bank soundness.

1988 · 38 years ago

The United Nations adopted the Vienna Convention against drug-linked money laundering

The convention required signatory states to criminalise money laundering tied to drug trafficking, the first binding international treaty obligation of its kind and a direct precursor to the Financial Action Task Force.

1989 · 37 years ago

The Group of Seven founded the Financial Action Task Force

Leaders established the task force at their Paris summit to develop coordinated international policy against money laundering, creating the body that still sets the global benchmark against which national compliance regimes are measured.

1990 · 36 years ago

The Financial Action Task Force issued its 40 Recommendations

The task force published its first standard on combating money laundering, giving governments and banks worldwide a common reference framework that became the basis for national anti-money laundering law.

June 2026 · 2 months ago

The Pacific Islands Forum fully established an office to fight correspondent banking withdrawal

The Correspondent Banking Relationship office now coordinates a US$77 million project across eight Pacific countries, part of an effort launched in 2024 to keep cross-border banking channels open as global banks continued to withdraw from the region.

• The project responded to a 2024 crisis point

June 2026 · 2 months ago

The Financial Action Task Force added Iraq and Bosnia and Herzegovina to its grey list

The June 2026 plenary placed the two jurisdictions under increased monitoring for anti-money laundering and terrorist-financing gaps, while removing Algeria and Namibia after they completed agreed action plans, leaving 22 jurisdictions under enhanced scrutiny worldwide.

• Iraq was cited for weak money-laundering investigations

March 2026 · 5 months ago

The United States re-proposed Basel III endgame capital rules

Federal banking agencies issued revised capital requirements expected to be broadly capital-neutral for large banks, with implementation now expected to begin in 2027 and phase in over three years, years behind the original global timetable agreed after the 2008 crisis.

February 2026 · 6 months ago

Kuwait returned to the FATF grey list

Kuwait was re-listed alongside Papua New Guinea after a mutual evaluation found critical shortcomings, including a weak understanding of terrorist-financing risk and too few investigations into complex money-laundering cases.

2026 · this year

The European Union and the United Kingdom postponed Basel III trading book rules again

Brussels pushed adoption of the market risk framework back a further year beyond its already delayed 2026 target, while London deferred implementation to January 2027, prolonging a divergence in global capital standards first agreed a decade earlier.

2026 · this year

The Bank for International Settlements recorded a 25% decline in correspondent banking relationships since 2011

The steepest reductions hit developing economies in Africa, the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean, as global banks concentrated compliance spending on fewer, larger counterparties and exited jurisdictions seen as high-risk or low-volume for anti-money laundering purposes.

2026 · this year

Africa loses an estimated $5 billion a year to correspondent banking withdrawal

The continued retreat of global banks from correspondent relationships has raised the cost and difficulty of cross-border payments and trade finance, prompting a push toward open payment systems as an alternative channel for compliant cross-border transactions.

October 2025 · 10 months ago

Nigeria and South Africa exited the FATF grey list

The two countries were removed alongside Burkina Faso and Mozambique after demonstrating sufficient progress on their action plans, easing the enhanced due diligence and reputational costs that grey-listing imposes on cross-border banking and investment.

September 2025 · 11 months ago

India had implemented none of the final Basel III standards

A Basel Committee review found only 8 of its 20 members had completed the full framework, with India notably absent from any implementation despite running one of the world's largest banking systems, underscoring wide divergence in global standards adherence.

February 2025 · last year

Laos and Nepal were added to the FATF grey list

Both countries were placed under increased monitoring for anti-money laundering deficiencies, while the Philippines was removed from the list in the same plenary after completing its action plan on financial crime controls.

• The Philippines completed a multi-year exit process

2010 · 16 years ago

The Basel Committee finalised the Basel III package of reforms

New bank capital, leverage and liquidity requirements were agreed in response to the 2008 crisis, setting a global minimum standard that individual countries then had to transpose into domestic law, a process many had still not completed over a decade later.

2009 · 17 years ago

G20 leaders established the Financial Stability Board

The new body succeeded the earlier Financial Stability Forum to coordinate the design and monitor the implementation of international financial standards across member jurisdictions after the global financial crisis exposed gaps in oversight.

2001 · 25 years ago

The Financial Action Task Force expanded its mandate to counter terrorist financing

Following the September 11 attacks, the task force added terrorist financing to its remit and countries worldwide rapidly tightened correspondent banking and customer due diligence rules, reshaping global compliance practice almost overnight.