UAE FININT Resilience using a Network-Based Framework for Countering Terrorist Financing: From AML Compliance to Financial-Hub Resilience, An Attempt to Design an Integrated Counter-Terrorist-Financing Architecture for the United Arab Emirates
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54878/mxegpk56Keywords:
terrorist financing, financial-hub resilience, United Arab Emirates, AML/CFT, financial intelligence, network risk, public-private partnership, typology-led detectionAbstract
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) occupies a distinctive position in the international financial system: its success as a global banking, trade, logistics and virtual-asset hub simultaneously generates economic value and creates a complex exposure surface for transnational terrorist financing. This article argues that institution-level anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing (AML/CFT) compliance remains necessary but analytically and operationally incomplete for a high-connectivity jurisdiction, and proposes a shift from a compliance-centred architecture to a Financial Hub Resilience Model (FHRM). The study adopts a doctrinal and conceptual research design, combining doctrinal legal analysis of primary instruments (Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 and Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025), comparative institutional analysis of the United Kingdom, Singapore and United States frameworks, and conceptual synthesis of the regulatory-compliance, network-analytic and geopolitical literatures. The FHRM relocates the unit of defence from the individual regulated entity to the interconnected ecosystem. It rests on two original constructs: the Financial Hub Attack Surface (seven-layer interfaces across banking, informal value transfer, corporate structures, trade, real estate, digital finance and the non-profit sector); and Financial Convergence Risk (individually explicable transactions that form, across institutions, a coherent terrorist-financing pathway invisible to single-institution monitoring). The model yields an operational architecture centred on intelligence fusion, typology-led detection, a bidirectional public-private partnership, and two outcome metrics (Time-to-Disruption and Financial Network Containment). Its central claim is that the UAE’s financial connectivity can be converted from a residual vulnerability into a sustained comparative advantage in financial integrity and national security, provided the ecosystem, rather than the firm, becomes the object of defence.
References
Legislation and Regulatory Instruments
Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-508, 84 Stat. 1114 (United States). https://www.federalreserve.gov/frrs/regulations/bank-secrecy-act.htm
Cabinet Resolution No. 134 of 2025 Concerning the Executive Regulations of Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 (United Arab Emirates). https://rulebook.centralbank.ae/en/rulebook/cabinet-resolution-no-134-2025-regarding-executive-regulations-federal-decree-law-no-10
Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates. (2024-2026). AML/CFT Rulebook and supervisory guidance (including guidance on trade-based money laundering, correspondent banking, and proliferation financing). https://www.centralbank.ae
Federal Decree-Law No. 7 of 2024 amending the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism framework (United Arab Emirates). https://rulebook.centralbank.ae/en/rulebook/federal-law-decree-no-7-2024-amending-certain-provisions-federal-law-law-no-20-2018-anti
Federal Decree-Law No. 10 of 2025 Regarding Combating Money Laundering Crimes, Combating the Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of Arms Proliferation (United Arab Emirates). https://rulebook.centralbank.ae/en/rulebook/federal-decree-law-no-10-2025-regarding-anti-money-laundering-and-combating-financing
Federal Decree-Law No. 20 of 2018 on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Illegal Organisations (repealed) (United Arab Emirates). https://uaelegislation.gov.ae/en/legislations/1500
Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on the Protection of Personal Data (United Arab Emirates). https://uaelegislation.gov.ae/en/legislations/3912
United Nations Security Council. (1999). Resolution 1267 (S/RES/1267). https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/s/res/1267-(1999)
United Nations Security Council. (2001). Resolution 1373 (S/RES/1373). https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/resolutions
USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-56, §§ 314(a)-(b), 115 Stat. 272 (United States). https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/usa-patriot-act
Scholarship and Reports
Amicelle, A. (2011). Towards a “new” political anatomy of financial surveillance. Security Dialogue, 42(2), 161-178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010611401472
Biersteker, T. J., & Eckert, S. E. (Eds.). (2008). Countering the financing of terrorism. Routledge. doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2486.2008.00815.x
Chaikin, D. (2009). How effective are suspicious transaction reporting systems? Journal of Money Laundering Control, 12(3), 238-253. https://doi.org/10.1108/13685200910973628
de Goede, M. (2012). Speculative security: The politics of pursuing terrorist monies. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816675890.001.0001
de Koker, L. (2006). Money laundering control and suppression of financing of terrorism: Some thoughts on the impact of customer due diligence measures on financial exclusion. Journal of Financial Crime, 13(1), 26-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/13590790610641206
Dion-Schwarz, C., Manheim, D., & Johnston, P. B. (2019). Terrorist use of cryptocurrencies: Technical and organizational barriers and future threats. RAND Corporation. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3026.html
Fanusie, Y. J., & Robinson, T. (2018). Bitcoin laundering: An analysis of illicit flows into digital currency services. Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance & Elliptic. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2018/01/10/bitcoin-laundering-an-analysis-of-illicit-flows-into-digital-currency-services/
Financial Action Task Force. (2013). The role of hawala and other similar service providers in money laundering and terrorist financing. FATF. https://www.fatf-gafi.org/content/fatf-gafi/en/publications/Methodsandtrends/Role-hawalas-in-ml-tf.html
Financial Action Task Force. (2019). Guidance for a risk-based approach to virtual assets and virtual asset service providers. FATF. https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/publications/Fatfrecommendations/Rba-virtual-assets-2019.html
Financial Action Task Force. (2021). Trade-based money laundering: Trends and developments. FATF. https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/publications/Methodsandtrends/Trade-based-money-laundering-trends-and-developments.html
Financial Action Task Force. (2023). Methodology for assessing technical compliance with the FATF Recommendations and the effectiveness of AML/CFT systems (updated). FATF. https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/publications/Mutualevaluations/Fatf-methodology.html
Financial Action Task Force & MENAFATF. (2020). Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures, United Arab Emirates: Mutual evaluation report. FATF. https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/publications/Mutualevaluations/Mer-uae-2020.html
Freeman, M. (2011). The sources of terrorist financing: Theory and typology. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 34(6), 461-475. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2011.571193
Government of the United Arab Emirates. (2024). National strategy for anti-money laundering, combating the financing of terrorism and proliferation financing 2024-2027. https://www.namlcftc.gov.ae
Halliday, T. C., Levi, M., & Reuter, P. (2014). Global surveillance of dirty money: Assessing assessments of regimes to control money-laundering. Center on Law and Globalization. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4928216; http://www.lexglobal.org/files/Report_Global%20Surveillance%20of%20Dirty%20Money%201.30.2014.pdf
Jofre, M., Aziani, A., & Villa, E. (2024). Terrorist financing: Traditional vs. emerging financial technologies. Terrorism and Political Violence, 38(4), 354-367. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2024.2433635.
Keatinge, T., Carlisle, D., & Keen, F. (2018). Virtual Currencies and Terrorist Financing: Assessing the Risks and Evaluating Responses. RUSI. This RUSI publication was presented to the European Parliament's Special Committee on Terrorism Royal United Services Institute. https://web.archive.org/web/20190331130840/https://rusi.org/rusi-news/virtual-currencies-and-terrorist-financing-research-%C2%A0-european-parliament#1
Levi, M., & Reuter, P. (2006). Money laundering. Crime and Justice, 34(1), 289-375. https://doi.org/10.1086/501508
Levi, M., Reuter, P., & Halliday, T. (2018). Can the AML system be evaluated without better data? Crime, Law and Social Change, 69(2), 307-328. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-017-9757-4
Levi, M., & Soudijn, M. (2020). Understanding the laundering of organized crime money. Crime and Justice, 49(1), 579-631. https://doi.org/10.1086/708047
Levitt, M. (2013). Hezbollah: The global footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God. Georgetown University Press.
Maxwell, N. J., & Artingstall, D. (2017). The role of financial information-sharing partnerships in the disruption of crime (Occasional Paper). Royal United Services Institute. https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/occasional-papers/role-financial-information-sharing-partnerships-disruption-crime
Nagin, D. S. (2013). Deterrence in the twenty-first century: A review of the evidence. Crime and Justice, 42(1), 199-263. https://doi.org/10.1086/670398
Nance, M. T. (2018). The regime that FATF built: An introduction to the Financial Action Task Force. Crime, Law and Social Change, 69(2), 109-129. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-017-9747-6
Passas, N. (2006). Fighting terror with error: The counter-productive regulation of informal value transfers. Crime, Law and Social Change, 45(4-5), 315-336. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-006-9041-5
Pol, R. F. (2020). Anti-money laundering: The world’s least effective policy experiment? Together, we can fix it. Policy Design and Practice, 3(1), 73-94. https://doi.org/10.1080/25741292.2020.1725366
Raab, J., & Milward, H. B. (2003). Dark networks as problems. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 13(4), 413-439. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpart/mug029
Ryder, N. (2015). The financial war on terrorism: A review of counter-terrorist financing strategies since 2001. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203722589
Sharman, J. C. (2011). The money laundry: Regulating criminal finance in the global economy. Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801463198
Teichmann, F. M. J. (2019). Recent trends in money laundering and terrorism financing. Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, 27(1), 2-12. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFRC-03-2018-0042
UAE Financial Intelligence Unit. (2024). Annual report 2024. UAEFIU. https://uaefiu.gov.ae/media/lfdhf4sa/fiu-annual-report-2025-e_-revised-sep-9-hyperlinked.pdf
UAE Financial Intelligence Unit. (2025a). Strategic analysis report on terrorist financing. UAEFIU. https://uaefiu.gov.ae/en/more/knowledge-centre/publications/trends-typology-reports/strategic-analysis-report-on-terrorist-financing/
UAE Financial Intelligence Unit. (2025b). Report on virtual assets. UAEFIU. https://www.uaefiu.gov.ae/media/sjsfchg1/uaefiu-report-on-vas-public-version-dec-2025.pdf
Wolfsberg Group. (2022). Statement on effectiveness and the Wolfsberg anti-money-laundering principles. https://dev.wolfsberg-group.org/resources/effectiveness/34
Zabyelina, Y. (2022). The “Capone Discovery”: Extortion as a method of terrorism financing. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 45(5-6), 501-516. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2019.1678860
