By AAT Comment Anti-money laundering Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) annual report 28 Jan 2026 The UKFIU’s SARs annual report is available now. We’ve also summarised the key points for you. A Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) alerts that certain client activity or transactions are in some way suspicious and might indicate money laundering or terrorist financing activity. It provides valuable information on potential criminality and protects you, your organisation and UK financial institutions from the risk of laundering the proceeds of crime. Those working in the regulated sector are obliged to report knowledge or suspicion to the UK Financial Intelligence Unit (UKFIU) via SAR portal. The UKFIU is positioned within the National Crime Agency (NCA) and are responsible for receiving, reviewing, triaging and disseminating received SARs. On behalf of the UKFIU, we would like to share their SARs annual report. Key points We encourage you to read the report in full, but we’ve summarised some key points: the new SARs portal for reporters have helped to improve the quality of SARs 866,616 SARs were received (a decrease from 872,048 in the previous reporting period) the accountancy sector submitted 0.71% of all SARs received in the reporting period – banking and financial services continue to represent the largest proportion of SAR reporters the highest amount of assets ever denied from Defence Against Money Laundering (DAML) requests was recorded an average turnaround time for decisions for all DAML requests decreased from 3.11 days (in 2023-24) to 2.8 days the UKFIU received more inbound intelligence requests than any other Financial Intelligence Unit worldwide. We also encourage you to read the following articles: Important update to all regulated firms: UKFIU guidance library AAT’s annual report Further guidance Further guidance and support on risk management and other components of Money Laundering Regulations compliance is available on our AML webpage. You can also contact us on +44 (0)20 7367 1347 or via email at [email protected]. Future of supervision On 21 October 2025, the Government confirmed that the AML supervision for accountancy, legal and Trust and Company Service Provider sectors will move to a single professional services supervisor (SPSS), specifically the Financial Conduct Authority. While this is a big shift, implementation is likely to take years. In the meantime, AAT will continue as the AML supervisor for our licensed members and carry out our normal responsibilities, including Practice Assurance Reviews and risk assessment activities. Therefore, our members must ensure full compliance with the MLR 2017. More on the consultation response can be found here. AAT Comment offers news and opinion on the world of business and finance from the Association of Accounting Technicians.