The AUSTRAC annual report 2019-20 highlights our achievements over a challenging year. This includes our agility in responding to the challenges posed by COVID-19 and the work being done to protect Australia’s financial system, businesses and the wider community from criminal abuse.

We have continued to play a vital role in detecting and deterring crime through our strong regulation and intelligence capabilities.

The 2019-20 Annual Report highlights some of our key achievements, including:

• partnering with agencies including the Australian Taxation Office and Services Australia to prevent and detect fraud against, and criminal exploitation of, Australian Government programs introduced in response to COVID-19, such as the early release of superannuation and JobKeeper
• the addition of five new Fintel Alliance members, which has supported the AUSTRAC-led public-private partnership to expand its focus to 24 crime types and commence 29 operations in 2019-20
• supporting industry with a range of measures to assist industry in complying with their legislative obligations during COVID-19
• collaboration with the Australian Banking Association and the Australian Israeli Chamber of Commerce of NSW, to make a change to an Anti-money Laundering and Counter-terrorism Financing Rule to help Australians fleeing domestic violence and financial abuse

Following the $104 million funding boost announced as part of the 2020-21 Federal Budget, we will continue to build on work completed during 2019-20. This includes dedicating more resources to ensuring regulated businesses comply with their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations, increasing the detection of non-compliance as well as the delivery of an enhanced reporting system for our 15,000 reporting entities.