The two pilots, however, would allow extensive information sharing between banks on large-scale financial crime, expand public-private data sharing initiatives and set up a similar platform to Britain's national fraud database for serious economic crime. The pilots could be formally launched by October when Britain's economic crime and corporate transparency bill, currently on its way through parliament, is expected to become law. This legislation aims to protect regulated firms from confidentiality rules if they share information to tackle economic crime, giving them the leeway to ramp up data sharing. One financial crime investigations lawyer, who declined to be named because of client sensitivities, said that information-sharing needed appropriate safeguards. The NCA told Reuters it was discussing the data sharing pilot with a number of banks to try and identify "actionable intelligence".

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Persons: Dado Ruvic, Banks, Simon Fell, Iain Withers, Kirstin Ridley, Sinead Cruise, Jane Merriman Organizations: U.S, REUTERS, Lloyds, NatWest, Reuters, HSBC, Barclays, Crime Agency, UK Finance, Home Office, NCA, Thomson Locations: Russia, Britain, Ukraine