Financial inclusion and AML/CFT: Managing access and risk in practice

Shufti October 30, 2026 8 minute read

Back

Balancing financial inclusion and AML/CFT

Expanding access to financial services remains a priority for governments, regulators and financial institutions. Yet organisations must also meet their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) obligations without creating unnecessary barriers for customers.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has reinforced the importance of a proportionate, risk-based approach that supports financial inclusion alongside effective financial crime controls. However, translating this approach into everyday compliance practices can be challenging.

Join Shufti and the International Compliance Association (ICA) for a live webinar exploring how financial institutions can apply risk-based measures in practice, adapt customer due diligence to different risk levels and use identity verification and ongoing monitoring to support responsible financial access.

The conversation in brief

Applying a proportionate, risk-based approach

Understand how risk-based AML/CFT measures work in practice, why proportionality matters and where organisations commonly struggle to balance access with financial crime controls.

Removing unnecessary barriers to financial services

Explore how appropriate customer due diligence, identity verification and ongoing monitoring can help organisations address barriers to financial access while maintaining effective compliance measures.

Financial inclusion in practice

Examine real-world approaches to financial inclusion, the role of innovation and how organisations can align broader financial access with regulatory expectations and financial crime risk management.

Meet the Panel

Heather Wurster

Course Director, International Compliance Association (ICA)

Heather Wurster is a freelance financial crime trainer based in London. She has spent over twenty years teaching banks and their teams how to handle financial crime risk and customer due diligence.

She is a Course Director at the International Compliance Association, where she was previously Global Lead for Customer Due Diligence. She also trains teams at Fraud Sentinel and DCM. Her work covers the fraud side and AML side as well.

Raja Hassan Fayyaz

VP, Product Development & Marketing, Shufti

Raja Hassan Fayyaz is Chief Product Officer at Shufti, where he leads the teams building its identity verification, AML and fraud prevention products, working with clients including Mastercard, Stripe and Binance.

Before Shufti, he was Chief Development Officer at QuickBit, building a blockchain payment gateway handling over 20,000 transactions a month and custom crypto wallets for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

Tarek Howayek

Head of AML and Framework, HSBC

Tarek Howayek is Head of AML and Framework, Financial Crime at HSBC MENAT. He has more than 19 years of experience in banking and has spent over a decade at HSBC in senior compliance and financial crime roles across the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.

He leads the region’s AML and compliance policies, making sure the frameworks meet regulatory requirements and HSBC standards.

Ben Young

Principal, Financial Crime, UK Finance

Ben Young is Principal, Financial Crime at UK Finance, where he works on financial crime policy for the UK banking and finance industry.

Before joining UK Finance, he spent three years as Head of Domestic Anti-Money Laundering Policy at HM Treasury. He has around ten years of experience in UK government policy, including roles at the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Justice.