Banks as security actors Countering terrorist financing at the human-technology interface

Banks have become private security actors. As “gatekeepers” of the financial system, they are legally obliged to conduct customer research and monitor bank accounts for unusual or suspicious transactions. If they identify transactions with potential links to money laundering or terrorist financing, they must report these to their national Financial Intelligence Unit. Because of the sheer volume of financial transactions that banks process daily, detection of financial crime relies on digital security technologies that help analysts categorise and identify risky customers and financial transactions. This thesis analyses how banks practice counter-terrorist financing and how they experiment with technologies to make authoritative security decisions.

Contributing to theories at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies and International Relations, the thesis develops a dynamic and processual understanding of risk detection and of processes of financial inclusion and exclusion. The research is based on fieldwork observations in the financial crime sector in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It includes three months’ observation at a major Dutch bank, alongside interviews with public and private actors and document analysis. This dissertation analyses security at the human-technology interface, specifically during the production of customer risk profiles, in the design and use of transaction monitoring systems and in the emergence of public-private partnerships to counter terrorist financing. The research concludes that there is a misalignment between regulation and practice: the implementation of counter-terrorist financing rules does not lead to the effective prevention of terrorist financing in practice.