Closing the Gaps: Collaboration in the Fight Against Economic Crime - Remarks by Deputy Governor Colm Kincaid at the Irish Criminal Justice Agencies Conference 2026

Good morning.

Thank you to our hosts, the Revenue Commissioners, and to the Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development organisers of today’s event.

It is a pleasure to speak to you against the backdrop of the Advisory Council Against Economic Crime and Corruption’s recently published Strategy paper.¹ That Strategy places a strong focus on coordination and emphasises a whole-of-society approach to combat economic crime.

My message is straightforward, and stands fully behind that strategy.  

Economic crime is growing. And no single actor, institution or corporation can stop it alone.

What we need is for each of us to own our part of the fight, while also building the connections to enable us to work together in a collaborative way.

Our operating principle in responding to economic crime should be: clear ownership and connected action.

Economic crime as a public harm

I want to begin by applauding the ICJA for the title of today’s conference: “The Human Cost of Deception: Economic Crime as a Public Harm in Ireland”.

Too often the language we use when speaking about economic crime is technical and remote from the day to day lives of the people we serve. We use words like manipulation, due diligence, screening, AML and STORs.

That language can distance us from the harm economic crime causes.

Harm to real people. People we know and care about.

Fraud and scams provide perhaps the clearest example. The OECD’s Consumer Finance Risk Monitor 2026 describes them as the number one risk facing financial consumers internationally.² In our 2026 Regulatory and Supervisory Outlook, we identified fraud and scams as a key priority, reflecting both the scale of the threat and its impact on consumer trust and financial stability^.3

Indeed, fraud is now the most common form of personal crime in Ireland. 10.6% of the Irish population reported being a victim in 2025, up from 3.9% in 2019 and 2.4% in 2015.⁴

The rise of fraud and scams is neither a niche financial sector issue nor an Irish phenomenon. It is a mainstream and increasingly international form of criminal harm.

The statistics also tell us something about the changing geography of criminal activity. It is shifting from the street, the shop or the home to the phone, the online platform and the laptop.

But whilst the crime may take place behind a screen, the consequences do not.

They are felt by the small business owner unable to pay staff because of compromised accounts, by the parent who is conned into thinking they are sending money to their adult child abroad and by the worker who thinks they are putting money aside into a legitimate investment.

The consequences extend around the family table, where the anxiety, embarrassment and loss of confidence caused by the deception are shared. Indeed, our own preliminary research suggests that nearly three-quarters of fraud victims experience at least one non-monetary consequence such as erosion of trust in financial institutions, health impacts, social consequences, or perceived financial vulnerability.

And fraud is not the whole picture of course.

Economic crime also includes money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, market abuse, insider dealing, unauthorised financial services, sanctions evasion, and tax and customs offences.

Some of these offences have a specific individual victim. In other cases, the harm is dispersed.  But in all cases, the individual citizen suffers. The individual investor loses out to the market abuser. The hard-working taxpayer pays for the tax evader. The money launderer helps the criminal to have a good time spending the life savings of their victim.

And, as the public see such crime grow, it also damages trust. Trust in legitimate commercial actors, financial services, public institutions, markets and the rule of law.

The web of economic crime

Modern economic crime operates in complex networks and across borders.

Criminals might obtain personal data through an online platform, contact their targets through a text or other messaging service, impersonate a financial service provider, and move money through a payment account across international borders.

A financial institution might see a suspicious transaction.

A technology company may see the advertisement or chat forum used to attract the victim.

A telecommunications provider may see the communication channel.

A regulator may see an unauthorised service.

A law enforcement agency may hold intelligence connecting the activity to a wider criminal network.

Each institution may possess a fragment of the jigsaw.

That fragmented visibility is a feature of the crime itself. Our response must connect those fragments quickly enough to:

1. prevent the harm from materialising;
2. disrupt the activity; and
3. hold those responsible to account.

This is why clear responsibilities and accountabilities matter.

Policy makers must ensure the legal framework remains fit for purpose with clear institutional mandates and adequate resources.

Regulators must set appropriate standards, supervise firms to ensure they identify, mitigate and manage risks, and take regulatory actions where issues arise.

Law enforcement and the criminal justice system must ensure that financial crime is investigated, prosecuted and that wrongdoers are held to account.  

Commercial firms must identify, mitigate and manage the risks in their business model. That includes knowing their customers, maintaining effective governance and controls, monitoring transactions, identifying and reporting suspicious activity. It also means supporting their customers when things go wrong.

Academics, researchers, civil-society organisations and victim support services contribute evidence, evaluation and direct knowledge of how economic crime affects people and communities.

These responsibilities are different. But they are connected and collaboration is needed if we are to be effective in the face of a threat that is growing in scale, sophistication and becoming more global.    

The Central Bank’s role

The Central Bank of Ireland serves the public interest by maintaining monetary and financial stability while ensuring that the financial system operates in the best interests of consumers and the wider economy.

Our work to support the integrity of the financial system is a core part of that mission. It is about ensuring the financial system operates in a clean, transparent and accountable way.

This includes guarding the regulatory perimeter against firms and individuals providing financial services without the required authorisation.

Inside that regulatory perimeter, we supervise regulated firms’ systems and controls for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism.  This includes inspections, targeted and thematic reviews, and financial crime review meetings to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of firms' risk management frameworks. We have recently completed our thematic review of authorised push payment fraud in the banking sector and expect to communicate the outcomes to relevant firms and sectors in due course, including both good practices we've seen and where material gaps exist that require remediation.

We also oversee compliance of relevant financial sanctions’ obligations.

Our approach is outcomes focused and risk based.

This year, we also introduced new rules requiring firms to have better systems in place to support consumers who may fall victim to frauds, scams and other forms of financial abuse, underpinned by clear statutory rights of reimbursement set at EU level.

Most financial frauds and scams take place online. So, we engaged with large technology platforms incorporated in Ireland to get them to implement additional controls to combat unauthorised financial service providers. In 2025, we became Ireland’s first statutory Trusted Flagger for financial frauds and scams, enabling us to flag suspected illegal content online for priority treatment by platforms. As noted in our trusted flagger report in April, we have used this power to good effect. In that report, we also highlighted that an effective system for taking content down, while welcome, is not a substitute for platforms having effective systems to stop illegal content going up in the first place.

We work with An Garda Síochána, and other criminal justice agencies, Government and our European and international partners to share information and support coordinated action.⁵

We also contribute to the development of the policy framework.

Turning connected responsibilities into effective collaboration

So, how can we strengthen our collective response. I believe there are four key disciplines we need to develop.  

The first is to see the problem through the eyes of the individual who is being harmed.

Reporting should be as clear and accessible as possible for victims. Immediate action should focus on stopping further loss and recovering funds where possible. Engagement with the consumer should be empathetic and recognise the distress and damage caused by deception.

Clarity is also needed on who is liable when a consumer falls victim. To take fraud and scams, these are becoming increasingly sophisticated and concentrated in online platforms. I welcome therefore the upcoming EU Payment Services legislation to strengthen protections for customers from fraud, including certain requirements for advertisers of financial services to prove they are authorised to do.

The second discipline we need to develop is a better shared understanding of the threat.

No single dataset provides a complete account of economic crime. Combining supervisory information, reports from firms, criminal intelligence, academic research and the experience of victim-support organisations can give us a more accurate picture of emerging methods and points of vulnerability.

The third discipline is more timely information-sharing.

Relevant information needs to reach the institutions that can act on it. That depends on clear legal gateways, agreed channels, appropriate safeguards and a shared understanding of what information is useful to each participant.

The National Payments Strategy called for the development of a shared fraud database and included a commitment to prepare the necessary legislation. Properly designed, such a database could help firms and authorities connect signals that may appear inconclusive when viewed separately but become significant when piecing together the fragmented parts of the jigsaw.

The European framework is moving in the same direction. Article 75 of the EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation will permit information-sharing partnerships among obliged entities and public authorities.⁶ The upcoming Payment Services Regulation will require payment service providers to participate in fraud information sharing arrangements with each other.

Fourth, we need to continue to foster better international cooperation and learn from other countries.

Economic crime can be organised in one country, directed from another, target victims in a third and move the proceeds through several more. Strong national coordination must therefore connect to effective EU and international networks. We must also be ready to take concrete action to implement in Ireland things that have been shown to work elsewhere.

The work to be more connected is underway

Before concluding, I want to recognise the considerable work already under way to build our collective capability to combat economic crime, and collaborate to do so.

We see it in the Criminal Assets Bureau, where colleagues from An Garda Síochána, Revenue, and the Departments of Justice and Social Protection bring different powers and expertise to bear on the proceeds of crime.⁷

We see it in the cross-border Joint Agency Task Force, which coordinates policing and revenue authorities across this island against organised crime.

We see it in the AML Steering Committee, which brings together policymakers, supervisors, intelligence units, investigators, and prosecutors around shared national risks.⁸

We see it in the work now being undertaken by the EU’s Anti Money Laundering Authority.  

And there are many other examples of ongoing collaboration.

Conclusion

I began by saying no one institution can defeat economic crime alone.

The public does not experience our mandates separately. People experience whether the overall system prevented a harm from occurring, supported them when a harm occurred and held those responsible to account.

But neither can responsibility be allowed to dissolve into the collective.

Clear ownership and connected action are therefore not competing ideas. We need both.

At the Central Bank, we will continue to supervise the firms within our remit, strengthen consumer protection, guard the regulatory perimeter, protect market integrity, contribute to policy development and work with our partners across the criminal justice system.

Where regulatory failures occur, we will use our enforcement powers as part of a proportionate and credible supervisory response.⁹

Economic crime is changing. Part of it has moved from the street to the laptop, but its impact continues to be felt in real homes, businesses and communities.

Criminals have become skilled at finding gaps between organisations, sectors and jurisdictions.

Our task is to close those gaps – through clear responsibilities, strong institutions and purposeful collaboration.

Thank you.

*My thanks to Eoin Sheanon, Paul O’Brien and Susy Kenefick for their help in preparing these remarks.