FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit)
A Financial Intelligence Unit is the national body that receives, analyses, and acts on suspicious activity reports and other financial-crime intelligence from regulated firms. Every jurisdiction with an AML regime has an FIU, and it is the authority a firm’s MLRO reports suspicious activity to.
Knowing which FIU you report to, and being set up to file with it, is part of the AML readiness a bank or regulator checks before onboarding or licensing a high-risk firm. A business that cannot name its reporting channel signals an immature compliance function, which weighs against it in any review.
A Suspicious Activity Report is the formal report a regulated firm, through its MLRO, files with the national financial intelligence unit when it suspects a transaction or customer may involve money laundering or other financial crime.
A Money Laundering Reporting Officer is the named individual a regulated firm appoints to oversee its AML programme and file suspicious activity reports with the national financial intelligence unit.
Anti-Money Laundering is the framework of laws, controls, and monitoring a regulated firm must run to detect and prevent the movement of illicit funds.
The Travel Rule is a FATF requirement that obliges virtual asset service providers to collect and pass on originator and beneficiary information alongside crypto transfers above a set threshold, mirroring the data long required for traditional wire transfers under FATF Recommendation 16.