Feedzai’s new report “The State of Anti-Money Laundering 2025” reveals that anonymous digital payments and crypto-assets have become the dominant money laundering channel while many financial institutions still lack effective monitoring and AI-enabled controls. The study, based on insights from more than 300 anti-money laundering professionals, also underscores deep gaps in collaboration and technology adoption that leave global AML frameworks struggling to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated financial crime. **
Criminals’ use of new technologies, combined with patchy controls and uneven collaboration among financial institutions, is reshaping the global fight against money laundering in 2025, according to Feedzai’s report “The State of Anti-Money Laundering 2025”.
As outlined by Feedzai, the report draws on a survey of over 300 AML professionals worldwide, providing a snapshot of emerging threats, the maturity of technology and data-sharing practices, and the readiness of institutions to face the next wave of regulatory and criminal innovation. The findings indicate that anonymous digital transactions, crypto-assets, and generative artificial intelligence are simultaneously expanding criminal opportunities and exposing enduring weaknesses in legacy AML systems.
Feedzai report scope and purpose
As described by Feedzai on its official resource page, “The State of Anti-Money Laundering 2025” is presented as an exclusive insight report built on responses from more than 300 AML professionals across the financial services sector. Feedzai states that the research aims to highlight
“emerging threats, concerning gaps, and the power of collaboration”
for institutions seeking to modernise their AML programmes in the face of fast-evolving risks.
According to Feedzai, the report focuses on three core dimensions: the methods criminals currently use to launder funds, the tools and technologies AML teams deploy or plan to adopt, and the level of collaboration that exists within and between organisations. The company positions the publication as a practical resource for banks and other financial institutions that wish to “stay ahead of the curve” in 2025.
Anonymous digital transactions and crypto-assets
As reported on Feedzai’s report page, 55% of surveyed respondents identified anonymous digital transactions and crypto as common methods used for money laundering in 2025. This aligns with analysis cited by Blockchain Intelligence, which notes that over half of financial institutions surveyed see anonymous digital transactions and crypto-assets as the top laundering channel, while 36% admit they cannot effectively monitor these flows.
In the same coverage, Blockchain Intelligence highlights that only around 3% of surveyed institutions rank crypto and anonymous digital transaction monitoring among the most successful elements of their AML programmes, underscoring a significant performance gap. The firm further reports that 29% of financial institutions expect crypto-related issues to have a major impact on AML programmes over the next two years, adding urgency to investment in new monitoring tools.
AI, machine learning and GenAI pressures
On the Feedzai resource page, the company reports that 45% of surveyed AML professionals expect machine learning and generative AI to challenge AML programmes. At the same time, Feedzai notes that 38% of respondents do not currently use AI to augment their AML efforts, revealing a disconnect between perceived risk and technology readiness.
In a related Feedzai blog on fraud and financial crime trends, the author explains that AI and machine learning “go mainstream” in AML as banks seek to automate tasks, improve accuracy and detect emerging patterns, while generative AI simultaneously “unleashes fraud at scale” by enabling highly realistic impersonation and synthetic identities. The blog links the “State of Anti-Money Laundering 2025” report to this wider shift, noting that Feedzai’s survey of 300+ AML professionals was designed to surface how institutions are reacting to AI-related opportunities and threats.
Collaboration gaps in global AML efforts
Feedzai’s summary of the report states that 61% of respondents believe increased collaboration is crucial to AML efforts. However, the same summary stresses that around two-thirds of respondents do not rank collaboration as a successful aspect of their current AML programmes, highlighting a persistent implementation gap.
Earlier work cited by Bank Automation News on Feedzai’s prior “State of Global Anti-Money Laundering Compliance” report noted that AML professionals see improved data-sharing as critical to tackling money mule activity and other complex schemes, even as one-fifth of organisations said they did not share data internally. This previous finding, reported by Bank Automation News, provides additional context for the 2025 report’s emphasis on collaboration and suggests that structural barriers to sharing information remain a recurring issue in AML compliance.
Regulatory and geopolitical backdrop to 2025
While Feedzai’s “State of Anti-Money Laundering 2025” centres on AML practitioners’ perspectives, other sources indicate that regulatory and geopolitical dynamics are intensifying the compliance pressure felt by institutions. In a 2025 trends analysis, Silent Eight writes that the pace of regulation is accelerating, with stricter rules, sharper enforcement and new authorities, and describes 2025 as “a decisive shift in the fight against financial crime”.
Similarly, in a separate article on “Anti-money Laundering Evolution in 2025 and Beyond”, Citi underlines that money laundering remains a major global challenge as criminals adopt increasingly sophisticated methods, and argues that institutions must adapt to evolving regulatory pressures and crime trends while deploying technological solutions to mitigate these risks. Feedzai’s description of the 2025 AML report situates its findings within this environment, noting that outdated AML programmes are being left vulnerable as criminals exploit new technologies.
Crypto, DeFi and cross-chain laundering risks
The Feedzai report’s emphasis on anonymous digital transactions and crypto sits alongside wider sector concerns regarding crypto and decentralised finance (DeFi). Silent Eight’s 2025 analysis notes that wallets linked to illicit activity handled an estimated more than 50 billion US dollars in 2024, with layering and cross-chain swaps continuing into 2025, while only about 40 jurisdictions were rated “largely compliant” with FATF standards for virtual assets as of mid-2025.
Silent Eight describes what it calls an “on-chain analytics arms race”, in which financial institutions are racing to integrate multi-chain blockchain analytics and vendors layer AI-based graph tools to track funds across several blockchains, because single-chain monitoring has become obsolete.
These observations echo the challenges set out by Blockchain Intelligence, which stresses that failing to address crypto monitoring gaps could expose institutions to regulatory penalties and undermine global efforts against financial crime.
Persistent detection gaps and human impact
In an August 2025 blog post, Feedzai cites estimates that between 800 billion and 2 trillion US dollars are laundered globally each year and that about 90% of money laundering crimes go undetected.
The author states that although much has improved since the early 2000s, current alert levels and due diligence processes remain “unsustainable”, reinforcing why the insights captured in the “State of Anti-Money Laundering 2025” report matter for both regulators and the public.
The same Feedzai blog argues that more efficient AML regulations are emerging in jurisdictions such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore, and that banks can move towards more intelligent AML solutions without waiting for new rules, for example by modernising transaction monitoring and enhancing know-your-customer (KYC) processes.
Feedzai links these recommendations to the broader human impact of financial crime, framing the need for effective AML frameworks as not only a compliance obligation but also a response to the social harms enabled by illicit financial flows.
Modernising transaction monitoring and KYC
Feedzai’s guidance on modernising transaction monitoring suggests that traditional systems often struggle to keep pace with evolving criminal tactics, and that augmenting existing tools with machine learning and advanced analytics can provide a more comprehensive view of transactional risk.
The company also urges institutions to move from static, periodic KYC reviews to more dynamic approaches that incorporate real-time data and behavioural insights in order to detect changes in customer risk profiles more quickly.
In the same discussion, Feedzai notes that adoption of data standards such as ISO 20022 can significantly improve AML operations and due diligence investigations, including the way institutions structure and share transaction data. These themes align with the 2025 report’s headline finding that many AML programmes remain vulnerable when they fail to integrate modern analytics and data architectures, despite heightened awareness of technological threats.
Enforcement, sanctions and operating models
Silent Eight reports that in 2025 enforcement actions linked to sanctions and financial crime have increased, with the US Office of Foreign Assets Control issuing multiple high-value penalties, including eight-figure settlements, for weaknesses in sanctions compliance programmes.
The firm observes that regulators are no longer satisfied with “tick-box” approaches and are demanding risk-based programmes with real-time escalation and strong governance, making sanctions lapses as serious an existential risk for institutions as traditional AML failures.
Silent Eight further notes that investigations are being reshaped by AI-supported systems that can pull evidence from multiple sources, draft case narratives and flag anomalies, prompting compliance leaders to focus on how to govern, audit and trust AI outputs in investigation processes.
These trends provide additional context for Feedzai’s 2025 AML report, which highlights that a significant minority of institutions still do not use AI to augment their AML programmes even as regulators and criminals both accelerate their use of advanced technologies.
Outlook for AML programmes beyond 2025
Across the sources linked to Feedzai’s “The State of Anti-Money Laundering 2025”, a consistent picture emerges of a sector under pressure to close gaps in technology, data and collaboration. The combined commentary indicates that financial institutions are being asked simultaneously to improve crypto and DeFi monitoring, integrate AI responsibly into AML workflows, and respond to more demanding regulatory and enforcement expectations.
Feedzai positions its 2025 report as a tool for AML professionals to benchmark their programmes against peers and to identify where investments in AI, analytics, data standards and cross-institution collaboration are most urgently needed.
As regulators, technology providers and financial institutions move into the second half of the decade, the report’s headline numbers on crypto, AI, collaboration and undetected crime suggest that significant work remains to build resilient and adaptive AML systems capable of meeting the challenges outlined by the surveyed professionals.