To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision in improving standards in the financial sector.

The Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS) became operational in January 2018. OPBAS is part of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and supervises 22 professional body anti-money laundering (AML) supervisors which oversee the legal and accountancy sectors, as listed in the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. Neither OPBAS, nor the professional body AML supervisors (PBSs) supervise AML activities in the financial sector, which is instead supervised by the FCA. Fighting financial crime is a key priority for the FCA.

OPBAS’s key objectives are to reduce the harm of money laundering and terrorist financing by:

• ensuring a robust and consistently high standard of supervision by the PBSs overseeing the legal and accountancy sectors;

• facilitating collaboration, and information and intelligence sharing between PBSs, statutory supervisors, and law enforcement agencies.

  The recent Financial Action Task Force (FATF) review of the UK’s AML regime recommended that the UK should closely monitor the impact of OPBAS in undertaking its work.

By the end of 2018, OPBAS will have completed its initial supervisory assessments of all PBSs. The Government will continue to work closely with OPBAS to ensure that its plans and activities are effective and risk-based.