Financial crime is shifting faster than most compliance frameworks. Banks, microfinance institutions, insurers, forex bureaux and mobile money providers across Africa face scrutiny from supervisors, the Financial Action Task Force and international correspondent banks, and a weak programme can mean fines, de-risking and lost market access. Strategy, not box-ticking, is what separates institutions that cope from those that struggle.

This programme starts with the strategic architecture of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism: governance, risk appetite, the enterprise-wide risk assessment and the three lines of defence. It then moves to the controls that carry most of the weight, including customer due diligence, beneficial ownership, sanctions and PEP screening, and correspondent banking. The second half applies analytics to the problem, from building and tuning monitoring scenarios to segmenting customers, spotting structuring and layering, and mapping networks of related accounts.

Teaching is case-led. Participants work through realistic typologies and anonymised data sets, test the effect of changing thresholds, and draft the narrative of a suspicious transaction report. By the end, each person leaves with a risk-based strategy outline and a monitoring improvement plan for their own organisation.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Set the strategy, governance and risk appetite for an AML and CFT programme.
• Conduct an enterprise-wide money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment.
• Apply risk-based customer due diligence, beneficial ownership and enhanced due diligence measures.
• Evaluate transaction monitoring scenarios and tune thresholds to cut false positives.
• Use link analysis and anomaly detection to uncover hidden relationships and unusual behaviour.
• Recognise typologies in trade finance, mobile money, real estate and cross-border payments.
• Draft clear, evidence-based suspicious transaction reports.
• Report programme effectiveness to the board and to supervisors.

The course is aimed at professionals who design, run or review financial crime controls, including:

• Money laundering reporting officers and heads of compliance
• Compliance and AML analysts in banks and microfinance institutions
• Internal auditors and risk managers
• Mobile money, fintech and payment provider compliance teams
• Financial intelligence unit and law enforcement analysts
• Insurance, capital markets and forex bureau compliance staff
• Legal advisers and company secretaries handling regulatory matters
• Central bank and sector supervisors

Participants leave the course with:

• A draft risk-based AML and CFT strategy outline for their own institution.
• A structured enterprise risk assessment template covering customers, products, channels and geography.
• A checklist for reviewing and tuning monitoring scenarios.
• A tested approach to writing suspicious transaction report narratives.
• A set of red-flag indicators drawn from real typologies.
• A board reporting outline that shows programme effectiveness.

The programme treats compliance as an analytical discipline, and teaching reflects that through:

• Facilitator briefings that link regulatory expectations to practical controls
• Anonymised transaction samples analysed in guided spreadsheet labs
• Typology case files drawn from banking, mobile money and trade finance
• Group workshops on risk assessment and strategy drafting
• Peer exchange on supervisory experiences across participating institutions

Delegates who attend the sessions and complete the practical exercises are awarded a CPD-accredited Certificate of Completion by Vision Reach Global Consultancy, a record of professional development in financial crime compliance.