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The purpose of this paper is to determine whether Internet‐based services, used by those individuals or organisations seeking to launder monies derived from illegal sources, will pose a greater risk to financial institutions than more traditional financial services. The use of the financial services sector by criminals seeking to ‘launder’ money has become a business risk that financial institutions cannot ignore, with governments and regulators increasing the legislation and regulation designed to prevent money laundering. Financial institutions have both a moral and a legal obligation to assist in preventing criminals from obtaining benefits from their activities. Simultaneously, the development of Internet‐based financial services continues at a rapid pace, with new technologies such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)‐enabled telephones and interactive televisions empowering customers, allowing them the flexibility to carry out transactions without the direct involvement of the institution.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of anti-Money laundering (AML) disclosures in the annual reports and websites by differentiating between UAE Islamic and conventional banks, and examine the effect of AML disclosure on UAE bank’s performance.

This study uses content analysis to explore the extent of AML disclosure in the annual reports and the dynamic panel data two-step robust system to study the impact of the AML disclosures on banking performance.

The findings show that AML disclosure is at a low level for all UAE banks, conventional and Islamic banks. The results also show that the degree of AML disclosure on the websites of the banks is higher than that in the annual reports.

The sample for this study comes only from banks traded on UAE markets. Thus, the results may not be generalizable to banks traded on other financial markets.

Because of the cross-border character of the money laundry practices, our study suggests the UAE central bank to internationalize the AML regulations and develop an international AML regime as efforts to respond to the international development of the money laundry practices.

This is the first study that develops an index to measure the AML disclosure and contributes significantly in providing greater insight in respect to AML disclosure in banking industry within the emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the contrasting views of banks and banking authorities in Lebanon regarding the corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) nexus.

Using survey responses collected from the managers of five Lebanese banks and banking authorities, the authors conduct a qualitative comparative study of the opinions on CG, CSR and CG–CSR nexus.

The findings of this paper reveal that while a CG culture is well-instituted by the authorities and that some forms of CSR are already practiced by banks, disagreements exist between the Lebanese banks and banking authorities in defining the CG–CSR nexus. While CG is viewed as an all-encompassing concept by the banking authorities, most banks ascribe to the paradigm that CG is component of CSR.

The sample of this paper consists of large banks that have clear CG and CSR agendas. The results, therefore, cannot be generalized for the wider population of Lebanese companies that are characterized by family ownership and non-separation of ownership and control.

This paper informs both managers and policymakers on the differing views of the CSR–CG nexus while also contributing to informing the policy dialogue. Theoretically, this paper sheds light on the CG–CSR nexus in a developing country context.

There is a paucity of research on the CG–CSR nexus in the context of developing countries and for the banking sector in specific. This paper aims to address the gap in the literature by providing an in-depth qualitative examination of the CG, CSR and the CG–CSR nexus in the context of the Lebanese banking sector.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model to study the impact of corruption on money laundering.

The relationship between corruption and money laundering has been modelled by using differential games.

The authors' model suggests that corruption increases the quantity of dirty money laundered in the formal economy. It was also found that, jointly with the anti‐laundry regulations, the government should create a better salary policy, as a way to control corruption of federal officials.

To best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first theoretical paper that studies the link between money laundering and corruption.

The purpose of this study is to check the effectiveness of anti-money laundering (AML) regulations in Pakistan. The study investigates and analyses some key variables that may be influencing the effectiveness of anti-money regulations in Pakistan. Money laundering is most prevalent in the banking sector, as banks deals with the money’s deposition, withdrawal and transfer, therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-money regulations on subjective judgments. It is an exploratory study in which I have tried to find the relationship and impact of three regulations, which are customer record keeping, employee training and suspicious transaction reporting on money laundering.

A sample of hundred responses has been collected from employees working in different banks located in Rawalpindi and Lahore through questionnaire. Questionnaire has been developed on the basis of different dimensions of the research variables.

It has been found that that there is an impact of employee training on money laundering in banking system. A moderate inverse relationship between employee training and money laundering and anti-money laundering regulation of customer record keeping has weak impact on money laundering in developing countries.

The research is limited to Pakistan only, and to apply the same concept in other countries, researchers need to check the financial institutions of that country as well.

It has been suggested that to stop money laundry, special budget should be allocated for the capacity building of employees through training. Timely guidance and assistance of foreign-trained instructors or experts in combating money laundering should be taken. Implementation of anti-money laundering regulations should be transparent, consistent and timely.

The aim of this paper is considering that obtaining illegitimate property and obtaining property illegally is morally outrageous. The law also condemns it as a crime. The act of those who launder the proceeds of crime is also condemned. This condemnation is almost universal. So, money laundering as a way of diversion of the origin of the illegal gains into legitimate currency or other assets has been criminalized in most of the countries, including in Iran. Before criminalization of money laundering, there were different laws which referred to the case without referring to the term of money laundry. According to Article 49 of the Iranian Constitution “all proceeds of illegal sources like embezzlement, bribery, gambling and other ways should be confiscated.”

Article 662 of the Islamic Penal Code (IPC) ratified in 1996 criminalized dealing with the proceeds of theft and Note 2 of Article 119 of the Penal Code of the Armed Forces criminalized obtaining the proceeds of embezzlement. But, in 2008, to follow the international conventions, especially Article 3 of the psychotropic substances 1988 in Vienna and also Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, the legislator ratified the anti-money laundering code (AMLC). The methodology is an analytical one. The author using an analytical method, has analyzed the subject with consideration of Iran’s situation, as well as international documents and FATF’s recommendations.

The author has studied the issue, believing that domestic regulations of Iran comply with international regulations and FATF recommendations. The current paper considers the different aspects of the AMLCs in Iran in relation to FATF recommendations.

The author confirms the originality of the paper and declares that he has referred all the other materials.

The purpose of this interdisciplinary cross-country study is to investigate the influence of cultural tightness-looseness on money laundering.

The authors rely on tightness-looseness theory as the basis for their predictions. The authors use the Basel Anti Money Laundering Index to operationalize financial crimes. They use dynamic panel data regressions spanning from 2012 to 2018 across 66 countries.

The authors find a positive and significant effect of national culture on money laundering financial crime. This suggests that financial crimes increase in countries with higher levels of cultural looseness orientation. Moreover, the authors show that the absence of violence, control of corruption, political stability and voice and accountability has a significant and negative influence on money laundering financial crime.

Formal institutional factors are not the only factors that can help curb financial crimes, but policy regulators should also consider the degree of cultural tightness-looseness.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first research ever to examine the effects of cultural tightness-looseness on the level of financial crimes.

The purpose of this paper is to recognize the effect of the VAT fraud upon the market prices and to assess the occurrence of money laundering on the carbon emissions market. The paper presents an analytic breakdown of the MTIC pocketed funds and estimates the bearish impact of the VAT trade on the carbon prices. The VAT carousel could also be used for all the steps of money laundering given the lack of control and surveillance of various trading firms.

In a previous work by Frunza and Guégan it was shown that the European carbon market is strongly influenced by fundamentals factors such as oil, energy, gas, coal and equities. Using public market prices and volumes for both futures and spot exchanges, the model allows us to assess and quantify the spread between the observed carbon prices and the theoretical fundamental prices. The dataset analysis reveals that the spot volumes remained abnormally high compared to an empirical economic level, even after the end of the VAT fraud on the organised exchange. These abnormal volumes could be explained by the occurrence of speculative trading linked to the money laundering.

Findings present an analytic breakdown of the MTIC pocketed funds and a bearish impact of 2‐3 euros upon the carbon prices. The paper also explains the origin of a relative persistence of high volumes on the spot market by proposing a model of placement, layering and integration steps on the carbon emissions market, similar to the VAT carousel.

This paper is the first study that quantifies the market manipulation effect due to VAT fraud. The work is also unique as it provides the first estimation of money laundered on the carbon emission market.

In this study, the authors aim to investigate the control of corruption (COC) mechanism and the rule of law (ROL) in mediating the effect of culture on terrorism financing. Thus, whether the COC and the ROL can mediate the effect of culture on terrorism financing across 78 countries has been examined. This study can provide additional evidence about the importance of having good institutional quality to hinder any deviant behavior like terrorism financing.

Structural equation modeling is used to test the mechanism of the ROL and COC in mediating the effect of culture on terrorist financing (TF). This research tries to investigate the indirect path of culture in TF through COC and ROL and to examine the role of institutions in motivating or demotivating the deviant behaviors.

The results revealed that COC and ROL completely mediate the relation between culture and TF. This supports the postulation that there is an indirect relationship between culture and TF. Also, the results indicate that ROL is more powerful than COC, as a governmental tool, in controlling TF.

This paper highlights the fact that, according to authors’ research, this is the first study, to the best of their knowledge, that tests the mechanism of the ROL and COC in mediating the effect of culture on TF actions and money laundry.

Despite the existence of laws, regulations and sanctions, financial crime remains widespread. The Panama leaks have proven that people from all over the world are participating in money laundering and other financial crimes. This study aims to investigate the influence of national culture on financial crimes across 78 countries.

This study uses Hofstede’s cultural framework as a basis for its hypotheses on financial crime. It also uses the Basel anti-money laundering index as a proxy for measuring the incidence of financial crime across the countries under review.

The findings show that countries whose cultural profiles are characterized by low uncertainty avoidance, low individualism, high masculinity and low long-term orientation have high rates of financial crime. The finding also shows that countries whose cultural profiles are characterized by individualism or positive collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation have low rates of financial crime.

Laws, regulations and sanctions are not the only factors that can help deter the crime; governments should also take a holistic approach that includes the cultural factors that encourage deterrence.