Bank Responsibilities for Confidentiality in Relation to Money Laundering This can be broken down into the following sub-topics to understand its purpose,1. What is money laundering?2. How does it affect banks?3. How does this affect the banker's confidentiality responsibility?4. Banker's responsibility to prevent money laundering. What is money laundering? Money laundering is the process by which large amounts of illegally obtained money (from illegal arms sales, smuggling and other organized crimes, including drug trafficking and prostitution rings) are given away as having originated from a legitimate source. How does it affect banks? The next three stages involve money laundering. the. PlacementThe money launderer, who holds the money produced by illicit activities, introduces the illicit funds into financial systems. This can be done by dividing large amounts of cash into smaller sums which are deposited directly into a bank account or by purchasing a variety of instruments such as cheques, bank drafts etc., which are then collected and deposited into ...