Know Your Customer compliance costs have never been higher for banks in Europe. This thesis looks at the application of blockchain technology to reduce Know Your Customer compliance costs. The work within aims to utilise the strengths of blockchain technology in order to reduce the costs of compliance for banks. This is done through collaboration with industry partners, resulting in a system designed to meet banks’ needs. The contributions of this work are: 1) A system which enables data sharing between banks, enabling 2) reduc tion of costs by at least 45%, and 3) reducing or eliminating over reliance on third parties, 4) an exploration of how to price data within the system is made in order to help banks further reduce their costs, 5) reduction of chain size by reducing the size of contract creation transactions in Ethereum by 90% for standard users, lastly, 6) to better understand the functionality and purpose of smart contracts. The system is the first of its kind to remove the requirement of third party storage solutions, and is the first to explore pricing aspects in detail.

Syfte: Denna studie undersöker revisorernas roll i att förebygga ekonomisk brottslighet för att öka kunskap och medvetenhet om arbetsuppgifterna och effektiviteten hos revisorer i ett brottsförebyggande syfte. Metod: Studien utgår från en abduktiv forskningsansats med kvalitativ forskningsmetod som används för att få in olika perspektiv med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer från olika intressenter. Studien samlade in primärdata från tre auktoriserade revisorer, en förundersökningsledare från finanspolisen och en ekobrotts revisor från Ekobrottsmyndigheten (EBM).  Slutsats: I slutsatsen framkommer att revisorer spelar en kritisk men komplex roll i brottsförebyggande arbete, som inte alltid är i linje med intressenternas förväntningar. Att stärka revisorernas funktioner och förtydliga lagkraven och etiska normer kan överbrygga förväntningsgapet. Dessutom skulle ett förbättrat samarbete mellan myndigheter och kontinuerlig utbildning av revisorer i nya trender inom ekonomisk brottslighet kunna förbättra revisorernas effektivitet när det gäller att förebygga ekonomisk brottslighet. / Purpose: This study examines the role of auditors in preventing financial crime in order to increase knowledge and awareness of the duties and effectiveness of auditors in crime prevention, to understand the ongoing conflict surrounding the role of the audit industry in these efforts. Method: The study is based on a deductive research approach with a qualitative research approach used to collect in-depth perspectives through semi-structured interviews with respondents from various actors. The study collected primary data from three chartered auditors, a financial police investigator and an economics crime auditor from the Economic Crime Authority (EBM). Conclusion: The conclusion shows that auditors play a critical but complex role in crime prevention work, which is not always in line with actors' expectations. Strengthening auditors' functions and clarifying legal requirements and ethical standards can bridge the expectation gap. In addition, improved cooperation between agencies and continuous training of auditors in new trends in financial crime could improve auditors' effectiveness in preventing financial crime.

The illicit practice of money laundering (ML) poses global challenges, causing harmful repercussions for society. Legislators worldwide have placed financial institutions at the forefront of initiatives aimed at preventing ML. Even with the adoption of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures, financial institutions continue to face challenges in combating illicit financial activity. Prior investigations primarily concentrated on evaluating the regulatory framework itself, leaving gaps in understanding other aspects causing ineffective AML efforts. Going further in-depth, this study aims to explore how institutional pressure leads to ineffective ML prevention within Finnish financial institutions. To address these challenges, the institutional theory and several concepts supported the exploration of the institutional environment, with due consideration given to social constructs. Furthermore, a qualitative approach is employed due to the exploratory nature of this study. It consists of the analysis of both classified and public official documents from the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA), interviews held with representatives actively involved in financial institutions' AML efforts, and other official AML guidelines. The findings of this study acknowledge the suboptimal regulatory pressure and reveal instances of data deficiencies. However, the social context emerged as the most influential factor, highlighting the gap between AML efforts and ML activities.