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There seems to be some bizarre skepticism by some HNers of financial institutions' AML practices. But the thing is, AML is really difficult and expensive for ba

There seems to be some bizarre skepticism by some HNers of financial institutions' AML practices. But the thing is, AML is really difficult and expensive for banks, hiring floors of consultants dedicated to AML. This is a billion dollar problem (or more?). Whatever about training a CNN to classify images, an effective ML model/pipeline to tackle AML will break the back of a huge problem.

Kinnard 10y ago
It may be a billion dollar problem but it's a billion dollar problem like tax software, it wouldn't exist without the troll demanding his toll. The resources could be used elsewhere like on curing disease or on educating people: http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/money-laundering-is-financial-thoughtcrime-1058902-1.html http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/money-laundering-is-... It's a billion dollar problem that doesn't need to exist. Many people will probably make cursory argument that taxes(and by analogy ML regulation) are a necessary evil(They're now doing the troll's work for him)— I'd argue they are not necessary and they short-circuit us working on better replacements.
- dandermotj 10y ago
  But in the real world AML isn't going away, and it continues to be expensive.
- perlgeek 10y ago
  The troll is money laundering, not the regulation. And you can't ignore the troll, or even get rid of it, so you must mitigate damage.
  - Kinnard 10y ago
    How so?
  - dublinben 10y ago
    "Money laundering" is an imaginary crime. If certain patterns of transactions were not arbitrarily outlawed, there would be no need to enforce this law.
    - PeterisP 10y ago
      All kinds of fraud and theft of money from credit card and banking account data are very real crimes, and for them the main effective method of detection is following the money trail, and the main effective method of prevention is making the laundering hard, since already laundering is the difficult part that limits the scale of such operations, not the actual theft/fraud. Wonder why there is such thing as spam of "earn $$$ working from home handling bills online" ? It's because someone there has excess capacity to steal money, but not enough capacity to launder it.
    - ellius 10y ago
      Only in the sense that all crimes are "imaginary." Crimes are acts made illegal by law, which money laundering is. It's as illegal as murder.
      - awt 10y ago
        Certainly you're not comparing tax evasion to murder?
        ellius 10y ago
        Insofar as the logical basis for classifying them as "crimes," yes, I am. Not in terms of seriousness or morality, obviously. Also, conflating money laundering and tax evasion shows a serious lack of understanding. Tax evasion can involve money laundering, sure, but money laundering is often the mechanism used to enable far more serious crimes, including, yes, murder.
        awt 10y ago
        Many things "enable" murder, including cars, guns, bullets, knives, etc. In any case this utilitarianism is a dead end. If it is not absolutely fungible, it's not money, it's coupons, food stamps, tokens, but not money and will not ultimately be used as such.

Kinnard 10y ago

It may be a billion dollar problem but it's a billion dollar problem like tax software, it wouldn't exist without the troll demanding his toll. The resources could be used elsewhere like on curing disease or on educating people: http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/money-laundering-is-financial-thoughtcrime-1058902-1.html http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/money-laundering-is-... It's a billion dollar problem that doesn't need to exist. Many people will probably make cursory argument that taxes(and by analogy ML regulation) are a necessary evil(They're now doing the troll's work for him)— I'd argue they are not necessary and they short-circuit us working on better replacements.

dandermotj 10y ago
But in the real world AML isn't going away, and it continues to be expensive.
perlgeek 10y ago
The troll is money laundering, not the regulation. And you can't ignore the troll, or even get rid of it, so you must mitigate damage.
- Kinnard 10y ago
  How so?
- dublinben 10y ago
  "Money laundering" is an imaginary crime. If certain patterns of transactions were not arbitrarily outlawed, there would be no need to enforce this law.
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    All kinds of fraud and theft of money from credit card and banking account data are very real crimes, and for them the main effective method of detection is following the money trail, and the main effective method of prevention is making the laundering hard, since already laundering is the difficult part that limits the scale of such operations, not the actual theft/fraud. Wonder why there is such thing as spam of "earn $$$ working from home handling bills online" ? It's because someone there has excess capacity to steal money, but not enough capacity to launder it.
  - ellius 10y ago
    Only in the sense that all crimes are "imaginary." Crimes are acts made illegal by law, which money laundering is. It's as illegal as murder.
    - awt 10y ago
      Certainly you're not comparing tax evasion to murder?
      - ellius 10y ago
        Insofar as the logical basis for classifying them as "crimes," yes, I am. Not in terms of seriousness or morality, obviously. Also, conflating money laundering and tax evasion shows a serious lack of understanding. Tax evasion can involve money laundering, sure, but money laundering is often the mechanism used to enable far more serious crimes, including, yes, murder.
        awt 10y ago
        Many things "enable" murder, including cars, guns, bullets, knives, etc. In any case this utilitarianism is a dead end. If it is not absolutely fungible, it's not money, it's coupons, food stamps, tokens, but not money and will not ultimately be used as such.