Financial services (FS) investigation professionals are uniquely positioned to disrupt the flow of funds to criminals. The stakes are high: they need to facilitate legitimate transactions while staying compliant and avoiding enabling financial crime, such as sanctions evasion, money laundering and fraud. And yet, findings from our report The State of OSINT 2025 suggest that open source intelligence (OSINT) remains significantly underused in this sector.
Drawing on survey data from investigation professionals across industries, this article highlights three insights that matter most for financial services teams today, from missed intelligence opportunities to structural barriers and risks from absent training.
While over 50% of respondents in The State of OSINT reported using OSINT in over half of their investigations, 36% of FS investigation professionals said they use OSINT in less than a quarter of cases. That makes financial services the lowest OSINT user of all sectors we surveyed.
This gap is particularly stark for social media. Only around half of financial services respondents reported using publicly available social media as an OSINT source, despite its value in anti-financial crime (AFC) investigations. Traditional intelligence sources in banks, such as sanctions lists, PEP databases and corporate registries remain essential, but they don’t always tell the full story.
Publicly available social media can surface hidden relationships, behavioural signals and informal networks that point to obscured beneficial ownership or sanctions evasion. As The State of OSINT notes, overlooking the need to use a broad range of OSINT sources in investigations means financial institutions can miss early indicators of risk, leaving them exposed to regulatory breaches and enforcement action. In complex cases, judicious use of publicly available social media helps investigators build a more complete picture of risk, supporting faster resolution and more defensible decision-making.
When financial services investigators use OSINT, they face more barriers than any other sector. In the survey, over half of financial services respondents cited data access and tool access as barriers to successful investigations.
These challenges suggest an OSINT maturity gap. Compared to public sector and professional services teams, FS investigation professionals are often working with fewer specialist tools, less applied OSINT experience, and tighter compliance constraints. Almost half also cited strict OSINT rules as a barrier, reflecting concerns about regulation.
Specialist platforms like Blackdot’s Videris are designed to address these risks, combining secure access, auditability and integration with other proprietary data sources. For financial services teams, the issue isn’t whether OSINT is useful. It’s whether their organisations are empowering them to use it to its full potential.
Over half of law enforcement and professional services reported spending over five hours on OSINT training in the six months before The State of OSINT survey. More than two-thirds of financial services respondents, however, reported spending less than five hours on OSINT training in the same six months.
OSINT sources evolve rapidly, and inconsistent or informal training can lead to inefficiency at best, and compliance or security risks at worst. The State of OSINT highlights a worrying reliance on unregulated platforms like YouTube and Udemy for training among some respondents, which may leave organisations exposed if investigators lack clear guidance on ethical, legal and operational best practices.
This is a significant risk consideration for financial institutions facing increasing regulatory scrutiny. Many AFC regulations, including the EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Directives (AMLD), already recommend the use of OSINT, and this expectation is only likely to grow. Investing in structured training now will help close today’s complex cases faster and future-proof investigations, saving time, money and costly mistakes.