RESUMEN
The paper examines the emerging regimes, institutions and policies governing the fight against financial crime at the global level by focusing on the global drive against money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/CFT). The paper aims to explain how AML/CFT institutional frameworks are being set up and why; identify the policy priorities best served by current developments, the winners and losers of the process and the contradictions arising in the pursuit of these policies; and analyse the discrepancies between the governance framework and its expected effectiveness. The paper seeks to investigate the role of leading OECD countries, and the United States in particular, in the shaping of official and actual practices in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, in the context of a wider approach to financial crime. It also aims to show that global public policy in this field mostly serves to address policy-makers’ need for public action with respect to a diverse set of public policy goals; to relieve OECD financial centres from competitive pressures from offshore finance; and to shape private sector practices in a way which can consolidate and strengthen the position of the largest global financial players.