ContextSpecial address by Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour, Governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), at the 16th International Conference on Financial Crime and Counter Terrorism Financing (IFCTF) 2026, Kuala Lumpur, 6 October 2026.
Why it mattersMarks 25 years of Malaysia's anti-money-laundering law and argues that fighting financial crime now depends on turning data into intelligence through shared public-private effort.
- Criminals adapt quickly and financial crime keeps growing more complex.
- Geopolitical fragmentation adds uncertainty to money-laundering and terrorism-financing risks.
- The real difficulty is no longer finding information but turning it into usable intelligence.
- Build risk assessments that take geopolitical developments into account.
- Strengthen technology risk rules and create industry-wide fraud alerts before a payment completes.
- Deepen cooperation between public and private sectors and across borders, including shared infrastructure.
Read the speech summary
1. Twenty-five years of the anti-money laundering law
Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour, Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, used a compliance conference to mark 25 years of Malaysia's 2001 anti-money laundering act. He credits progress to repeated legal amendments, coordination bodies such as the national anti-financial crime and scam response centres and the national fraud portal, five national risk assessments, and supervision of more than 27 000 reporting entities, which earned a positive international evaluation in 2025. Results he cites: about RM1.9 billion of fraudulent transfers blocked in the first half of 2026, more than in all of 2025, and over RM37 billion of assets recovered in five years.
2. New threats
He sees two pressures. Geopolitical fragmentation is changing payment routes and trade corridors and straining cooperation, so it must feed into risk assessments. Technology is accelerating crime: AI-made fakes of voices and faces make scams harder to spot, around 95% of online fraud involves victims tricked into sending money themselves, and INTERPOL estimates AI-driven fraud is several times more profitable than older methods. Detection, he argues, must be automated as fast as deception.
3. Data and collaboration
The central bank, as financial intelligence unit, is investing in data-driven analysis. A pilot of the national fraud portal has flagged over 1 600 suspicious accounts that may be used as money mules, and new policy documents tighten technology risk management and banks' accountability for fraud. Banks and the payment network plan warnings that alert customers before a risky transfer is completed, with a pilot targeted for the first half of 2027, accepting some extra friction. He wants a shift from reacting to preventing fraud, more structured information sharing between firms and with the state, and stronger cross-border cooperation, ending with a call to anticipate, monitor, use technology responsibly and act jointly.