Draft intro — edit before publishing
Since 2017, account blocks under anti-laundering rules turned from a rare event into a daily risk for ordinary businesses. Banks responded by “whitewashing” — nudging companies toward cleaner, more legible financial behaviour before the regulator forces their hand.
This article unpacks the mechanics: what actually triggers a freeze, why a healthy company can still get caught, and what the bank is really optimising for when it asks for one more document.
From the product side, I look at how we built protection against block risk — turning an opaque compliance process into clear, early signals a business owner can act on, instead of a letter that arrives too late.