Gasp! A Compliance Conference!
Compliance officers, we need to talk. Something amazing just happened.
It happened thousands of miles away from most of us, in the windswept city of Wellington, New Zealand. There, the New Zealand Financial Intelligence Unit — the country’s chief anti-money laundering agency, roughly equivalent to FinCEN here in the United States — held a compliance conference this week.
Like, with people. In a room. IN PERSON.
Moreover, because New Zealand took coronavirus seriously from the start, and all but extinguished the virus over the summer, the attendees didn’t even have to wear masks or practice social distancing. The whole thing was like a piece of the 2019 conference world, dropped into the hellish existence the rest of the world knows as 2020.
Since so many of us do like attending compliance conferences and have no idea when that might happen again in the United States or Europe, I scrolled through the Twitter feed of the Financial Intelligence Unit for evidence of this blessed event. Here’s what I found.
The conference began, as all conferences do, with welcome remarks from a high-level speaker. One might wonder whether only the speaker on stage was allowed to appear without a mask…
Det. Supt. Iain Chapman opens the #AML #CFT Conference 2020 – we have a busy couple of days ahead! 👍🏻 #nzfiu @ACAMS_AML @verifidentity @2ShakesNZ @namescan_io #strategicompliance #jadethirdeye #haloaml #tic #firstaml #membercheck pic.twitter.com/MF0YWm69sI
— Financial Intelligence Unit NZ (@NZFIU) November 9, 2020
But no! New Zealand has crushed the virus so well that multiple people can appear on stage at the same time without a mask! I vaguely recalled this practice from my youth, so I googled it. This format is called a “panel,” apparently.
This afternoon has Risks in Real Estate Sector with an expert panel that includes Peter Thompson and Max House from @BarfootThompson and @nzpolice #ARU manager Det. Insp. Craig Hamilton. Gary Hughes moderates. #aml #cft #followthemoney pic.twitter.com/FpJ6AC03gy
— Financial Intelligence Unit NZ (@NZFIU) November 10, 2020
I kept scrolling through the feed until I stopped dead in my tracks. People! Oh good lord, people sitting next to each other at a conference! Now I’m starting to remember those days…
Archana Kotecha Head of Legal @Liberty_Shared gives a sobering virtual presentation from Hong Kong on the insidious practise of #HumanTrafficking. NZ is not immune from this offending #nzfiu #aml #cft #followthemoney @libertysasia pic.twitter.com/bZzYgqJQa6
— Financial Intelligence Unit NZ (@NZFIU) November 10, 2020
And we close our photographic essay with another group shot, just to confirm that yes, conferences are still happening.
First up 👀insightful virtual talk from @keatingetom of @CFCS_RUSI that covers a range of subjects including #CFT. Another busy schedule of presenters today! 💸👍🏻 #followthemoney #aml pic.twitter.com/hLKh2tx5D2
— Financial Intelligence Unit NZ (@NZFIU) November 10, 2020
Even the speaker on screen, calling in from England, was touched.
Thanks for having me, and for reminding us up here in the UK what a real conference looks like… People. Sitting. Together…!
— Tom Keatinge (@keatingetom) November 10, 2020
I was so pleased at the success of this event, I mentioned it on Twitter — and then heard from the New Zealand FIU itself!
Without masks 😷 or social distancing either! 🇳🇿💪🏻
— Financial Intelligence Unit NZ (@NZFIU) November 12, 2020
OK, New Zealand, now you’re just showing off. The rest of the world congratulates you on a successful event! We eagerly await the time when we might hold a live conference in our own countries again, a day that cannot come soon enough.