The first strand of the inquiry will look at the current anti-money laundering and the sanctions regime. The committee will examine the scale of money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions in the UK, the current regulatory and legislative landscape, and how individuals, firms and the wider economy have been impacted by these regimes and the implementation of them.

The second strand will cover consumers and economic crime. The committee will scrutinise the scale and nature of economic crime faced by consumers, the effectiveness of financial institutions in combatting economic crime, and the security of consumer’s data.

Nicky Morgan, chair of the Treasury committee, said: ‘It has been claimed that the UK, particularly the London property market, is becoming a destination of choice to launder the proceeds of overseas crime and corruption – so-called ‘dirty money’. One estimate suggests that up to £4.4bn worth of UK properties may have been bought with suspicious wealth.

‘As part of our inquiry, the Treasury committee will examine the UK’s role in international efforts to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing and implement sanctions.’

At the consumer level, Morgan said the prevalence of online banking and payments meant there are now more opportunities for fraudulent activity.

‘The ONS has estimated that there were 3.2m fraud incidents for the year ending September 2017. As millions of customers are exposed to the risk of economic crime, we’ll scrutinise the response of the Treasury, its associated bodies and the regulators, and explore the role that consumer education can play,’ Morgan said.

The deadline for written evidence submissions to the inquiry is 8 May.

Details of the Treasury committee economic crime inquiry are here.

Report by Pat Sweet