What is Basel Institute
The Basel Institute is an independent non-profit, registered Swiss foundation and an Associated Institute of the University of Basel, dedicated to countering corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing and to improving standards of governance.
What Are Basel Institute Responsibilities
- supports both public and private sectors in designing and strengthening their anti-corruption systems
- provides research to the public and private sectors that helps further strategies to fight corruption
- as per United Nations, it specialises in:
- Asset recovery: the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) assists partner countries in tracing and recovering corruptly acquired assets from abroad. It provides training, technical assistance on cases and legal matters, and support for policy reform.
- Action against corruption. the International Centre for Collective Action (ICCA) supports companies and multi-stakeholder groups with advice on anti-corruption Collective Action initiatives. It hosts the B20 Collective Action Hub, an online platform for Collective Action resources.
- Public Governance research: a team of researchers and social network analysts conducts research on the root causes of corruption. They develop evidence-based anti-corruption approaches and provide training and assessments on relevant political and social aspects.
Basel Institute Publications
It provides an annual index on 128 jurisdictions (the “Basel Index”) measuring their risk exposure to money laundering and terrorist financing based on five key factors:
- Shortfalls in the AML/CFT framework
- Corruption and bribery
- Poor financial transparency and standards
- Poor public transparency and accountability
- Weak political rights and rule of law
Their risk rating methodology can be found here.
The 2022 Basel index can be accessed here.
In depth insights into ML/TF risk scores and the reasons behind them are available either for a fee for the public sector or free of charge for the public sector, media, non-profit and academic organisations. Subscribe here.
Basel Institute Updates
Updates regarding the release of the Index, latest news, blogs, guides, joint articles, and other publications are released via its newsletter. Registration for the newsletter can be done on their official dedicated page. Alternatively, newsletter articles can viewed on their website.
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