This chapter investigates the intersection of the regulatory framework and practice of remittances of emigrants in Africa on the one hand and the regulatory frameworks of combating money laundering. The chapter contributes to the nascent scholarly literature on the peculiarities of interaction between the states parties of the African Union on the issues related to remittances and combating money laundering. The investigation reveals a complex relationship. At the core of this relationship lie a myriad of normative concepts relating to migrants and ‘money’: the fear of financing terrorism and human trafficking, the need for financial institutions to participate in the international financial configuration, the importance of remittances for the economies back home, and the struggle for migrants’ financial inclusion and reduced risk of falling victim to shady financial services, high costs, or even loss of their money. The chapter first discusses the global framework for remittances as designed by the World Bank and its relationship with the fight against money laundering and then presents three case studies: Somalia, South Africa, and Kenya.

This chapter takes as its point of departure Objective 20 of the UN Global Compact on Migration to promote faster, safer, and cheaper transfer of remittances and foster financial inclusion of migrants. In order to achieve this objective, signatory states are called upon to facilitate remittance infrastructures and see to it that measures to combat illicit financial flows and money laundering do not impede migrant remittances through undue, excessive, or discriminatory policies. The objective also calls for accessing payment system infrastructure, such as bank accounts. While propagating financial inclusion the UN also has a strong impact on financial exclusion of migrants through its instruments against money laundering and terrorist financing. This dichotomy is echoed by the European Union when it comes to the implementation of the right of access to a payment account, also for migrants, acknowledged in Directive 2014/92. At the same time banks are asked to prevent money laundering in Directive 2015/849. The result of this dichotomy is undue, excessive, and discriminatory policies and practices on the ground, discussed in this chapter specifically for the UK and the Netherlands.

China has become one of the leaders in the global mobile payment market in terms of market volume, growth rate and innovation capability. This can be attributed to a number of enabling factors, including technological advancement in China, mobile payment’s competitive advantages and its wide acceptance by the Chinese people. Mobile payment brings significant benefits as well as various risks and thus should be regulated in a way that reaps its benefits while containing the risks. Over the past decade, China has gradually established a regulatory regime which is composed of various rules issued by different regulators in a piecemeal manner. China’s regulatory regime for mobile payment has several key elements, such as the entry and exit mechanism, management of customer reserves, anti-money laundering measures and consumer protection. The Chinese regulation has strengths and shortcomings, particularly in relation to the overall structure and approach of the regulation. There is also a need to address the negative effects on competition in the mobile payment market that may be brought by the high entry threshold and the centralized clearing mechanism.

There are vexing puzzles about one of the most comprehensive, far-reaching, most deeply penetrating and punitive of TLOs: anti-money laundering (AML). Despite its seemingly successful institutionalization, the AML TLO exhibits many deficiencies and imposes extensive costs on the private and public sectors, and harms upon the public. Given these failings, what explains its persistence? Could it also be the case that the pervasiveness and penetration of the AML TLO indicates it may constitute a particular species of “disciplinary” TLOs? Drawing on an intensive study at a moment when the TLO’s governing norms and methodologies of implementation were undergoing revision and expansion, as well as on observation and participation in AML/CFT activities over three decades, the chapter brings rich empirical evidence to address these questions: first, by briefly sketching the thirty-year development and workings of the AML TLO; second, by considering its benefits, costs, deficiencies and harms; third, by appraising explanations for its persistence, including the fact that it (1) works in some degree, (2) harms are felt most by weak domestic actors, (3) costs are largely hidden from the public, (4) the TLO has surface plausibility, (5) it is difficult to critique a TLO that purports to control terrorism, and (5) it is sustained by geopolitics; and, fourth, by arguing that the AML TLO may be distinctive insofar as it is a disciplinary TLO. Those singular properties may in fact be shared substantially by other TLOs directed at crime. The site of criminal justice thereby encourages a more differentiated understanding of TLOs in 21st century settings.