Skip to main content

Fintel Alliance

Fintel Alliance is an AUSTRAC initiative established in 2017 to increase the resilience of the financial sector to criminal exploitation and support law enforcement investigations into serious crime and national security matters.

A world first public-private partnership, Fintel Alliance brings together experts from a range of organisations involved in the fight against money laundering, terrorism financing and other serious crime. 

Fintel Alliance partners include major banks, remittance service providers and gambling operators, as well as law enforcement and security agencies from Australia and overseas. Working together, Fintel Alliance develops shared intelligence and delivers innovative solutions to detect, disrupt and prevent serious crime.

Financial crime guides

Fintel Alliance publishes resources to help businesses understand, identify and report suspicious financial activity to detect and prevent criminal activities.

Financial crime guides provide detailed information about the financial aspects of different crime types. They include case studies and indicators to help the financial services sector identify and detect suspicious transactions.

Businesses can use a combination of indicators in financial crime guides and their business knowledge to conduct further monitoring and identify if a suspicious matter report needs to be submitted to AUSTRAC.

Financial crime guides are developed in partnership by AUSTRAC’s Fintel Alliance, relevant government agencies, and our industry partners.

Read our financial crime guides 

AUSTRAC’s Fintel Alliance performance report 2021-22

Fintel Alliance’s performance report highlights our major operational achievements for 2021-22. 

The report demonstrates how Fintel Alliance partners focussed on emerging and complex financial crimes in order to establish and progress projects aimed at protecting the most vulnerable members of the Australian community. Fintel Alliance continued to support law enforcement operations to protect the Australian community from serious crimes such as money laundering, abuse and fraud.

Key achievements include receiving international awards for projects targeting illegal wildlife trafficking and professional money laundering, contributing to the arrests of offenders for money laundering, breaches of protection orders and serious fraud. Fintel Alliance has also released public reports to prevent the exploitation of emergency and disaster payments, detect and stop ransomware, prevent the criminal abuse of digital currencies and other financial crimes.

Download Fintel Alliance’s performance report (PDF, 665KB) - This report is an extract of the AUSTRAC Annual Report 2021-22.

Past reports

How Fintel Alliance works

Fintel Alliance consists of representatives from public and private partner organisations that work together to combat complex or emerging crimes impacting the community that require a joint public private approach.

Fintel Alliance has an established program of work based on targeting priority themes including crimes targeting our most vulnerable community members, exploitation of government revenue, disrupting professional money laundering, and crimes and threats to Australia’s domestic and international interests.

Fintel Alliance partners work together at AUSTRAC’s offices in Sydney and Melbourne, sharing and analysing financial intelligence to investigate and disrupt criminal and terrorist activity.

There are two information-sharing hubs where partners collaborate:

  • The Operations Hub – a physical space where partners exchange and analyse financial intelligence in close to real time, combining data with tracking tools and best-practice methodologies from their organisations.
  • The Innovation Hub –partners co-design and test new and innovative technology solutions that assist in gathering and analysing financial intelligence at an operational level. They also assess the impact of emerging technologies such as blockchain and digital currency (or cryptocurrency).

A day in the life of Fintel Alliance

The content on this website is general and is not legal advice. Before you make a decision or take a particular action based on the content on this website, you should check its accuracy, completeness, currency and relevance for your purposes. You may wish to seek independent professional advice.

Last updated: 26 Oct 2022
Page ID: 711

Was this page helpful?

Was this page helpful?
Please note that feedback you provide here will be used only for the purpose of improving our website. If you have a specific question about your AML/CTF obligations, please contact us.