A snapshot of France’s spproach to AI in AML regulation in 2024

2024-2025 Index score: 5.57 / 10

Index score between 0-10, with a lower score reflecting a more efficient and innovative regulatory approach.

The Index combines four weighted category scores: AML attitude, AI/AML regulation, total cost of compliance, and AML effectiveness, This produces an overall score (where lower is better) that measures each nation's balance between anti–money laundering (AML) efforts and outcomes, while also estimating the potential uplift from AI-driven AML improvements.

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Backed by data science, with explainable insights, the Index ranks forty countries across Europe, North and Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific on their effectiveness in financial crime compliance.

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See how countries rank: Napier AI / AML Index.

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Home to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), France has a strong commitment to AI innovation. Following the UK’s AI Safety Summit in November 2023 that produced the Bletchley Declaration, France will be hosting the next global AI summit in 2025.

The EU’s AI Act’s strong transparency requirements fit with France’s preference for ‘human-in-the-loop' AI. During the legislative process for the EU’s AI Act, France held out on approval for several months due to fears that certain components of the legislation could impede innovation.

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Due to the employment laws in the market, larger French banks have invested a lot in their people, who focus on technology infrastructure modernisation. Those with internal data science teams are the earlier AI adopters, looking into testing purpose-built AI for automation, that provides explainable insights for human decisions.

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France’s main financial supervisor, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), takes a cautiously collaborative stance on AI advancement in Europe. In June 2024, the AMF encouraged French market stakeholders to take part in two European Commission initiatives on AI. It also updated its risk analysis for money laundering and terrorist financing, pushing for a risk-based approach to financial crime compliance and cautioning the over reliance on AI tools.

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As the second largest economy in the European Union (EU), and a large European financial hub doing a lot of business in the US, financial crime measures can be stringent in France. Internally-built solutions could fall short of addressing industry-wide typologies and regulatory engagement trends as the market evolves and AI regulation takes shape. To future-proof anti-money laundering strategies, organisations should look for third-party modular and customisable AML tools that can integrate AI into their existing controls and data sets.

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Photo by Daniele D'Andreti on Unsplash

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