About AUSTRAC
The Australian Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) is Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulator and financial intelligence service. It ensures that businesses are compliant with their reporting and risk management obligations and analyses and provides law enforcement authorities (and national security partners) with information that assists them in their investigations and operations.
About AUSTRAC InBrief
Launched in December 2020 and published quarterly, AUSTRAC InBrief is aimed at helping businesses understand their AML/CTF obligations and protect the community from organised crime. Each issue of AUSTRAC InBrief covers a wide variety of topics and issues that involve AUSTRAC, including events, policy and legislation changes, case studies, compliance advise, and more. Issue 21, published in December 2025, consists of 12 articles thematically centred around collaboration and community partnerships.
Feature article
The feature article is an end of year retrospective written by AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas. In his update, he provided a broad overview of the upcoming changes to AML/CTF policies, how Australian businesses will be affected, how AUSTRAC has helped industries prepare thus far, and then touched on upcoming milestones and what can be expected in 2026.
Reform updates
New AML/CTF reforms guidance
Alongside AML/CTF reforms guidance published in October, AUSTRAC offered unfamiliar readers with information resources, a print-to-PDF function to save documents offline, and a reminder that new guidance will be issued over the coming year.
Education resources made available
New education resources have been made available on the AUSTRAC e-learning platform, including an AML/CTF program quick guide and governance oversight factsheet, methodology factsheets for tranche 2 industries, a customer due diligence video, multiple webinars, and travel and reporting group factsheets.
Industry guidance
Tips for completing compliance reports
AUSTRAC provided useful tips for tranche 2 entities, guidance around submission dates, account requirements for AUSTRAC Online, and a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) featuring the questions most commonly asked in the previous year.
AUSTRAC news articles
Managing risks for tranche 2 entities
AUSTRAC released risk insights and indicators to better spot red flags in tranche 2 industries and reminded readers that “a red flag is not an accusation of wrongdoing, it’s a sign to investigate further”.
Insider threat risks
As insider threats (an employee, contractor, or board member who uses their access privilege to conduct illegal activities) are a very real concern to businesses, AUSTRAC identified three types of insider threats (malicious, compromised, or negligent insider) noted how they can harm organisations (e.g. accessing customer data, altering daily transaction limits, etc.), identified poor governance as the primary cause, and provided guidance on how to combat such threats and identify and report worrying behaviour.
The positive outcomes of global partnerships
Global partnerships and collaborations with regional neighbours led to multiple positive outcomes in 2025 for AUSTRAC, including:
- championing Nauru’s (successful) entry into the Egmont Group;
- welcoming Tonga into a Memorandum of Understanding;
- developing tradecraft programs, sharing financial intelligence systems, and co-chairing events in the Pacific;
- headlining the Financial Intelligence Consultative Group’s plenary in the Philippines; and
- leading an initiative analysing cryptocurrency adoption trends in the Asia Pacific.
Year in review for the Fintel Alliance
2025 was a year of growth and development for the Fintel Alliance, which featured four notable developments:
- The Collaborative Analytics Hub becoming a core function of the alliance;
- The identification and tackling of four important current and emerging risks;
- Publishing a scambling (scam gambling) infographic; and
- Welcoming the Victorian Police into the alliance
Sharing intelligence results in major seizure operation
Through an analysis of operations conducted by the Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force, AUSTRAC was able to identify links between them that led to the creation of Operation SMOKEHAZE, which resulted in a major seizure of illicit criminal assets.
Industry survey helps inform future AUSTRAC guidance
The largest survey ever conducted by AUSTRAC (involving 1,300 businesses) gauged industry readiness towards AML/CTF reforms and assisted AUSTRAC in identifying what changes it needs to make to improve future guidance. More surveys have been promised in advance of key reform dates.
FATF provides global risks update
The Financial Actions Task Force (FATF) published updates on high risk jurisdictions subject to a call to action and jurisdictions under increased monitoring, and reminded reporting entities of the importance of staying up to date on high risk money laundering and terrorism financing jurisdictions.
User feedback and collaboration inform AUSTRAC Online updates
Collaborating with and obtaining feedback from users led to numerous improvements to AUSTRAC Online following recent updates to security, navigation, design, and cross-platform functionality. User feedback will also inform how reporting threshold transaction reports and suspicious matter reports will be made “more efficient” in the coming months, and 2026 will see further collaborations, user acceptance testing, and feedback analysis for the new AML/CTF Act and Rules.
Key takeaways
Collaboration and community partnerships are at the heart of issue 21 of InBrief. In working with the community and local and international partners, AUSTRAC is able to improve the quality of its offerings and foster tighter bonds with the global community, thus allowing it to enhance its primary goal of combatting money laundering, terrorism and proliferation financing, and organised crime.
